The Little Styling Trick You’ll Now Notice Everywhere

There’s this styling trick I keep noticing in campaign shoots and fall look books. I’ve seen it from Madewell, Aimé Leon Dore, Corridor, even Nike — the sort of midtier to mass brands that always endeavor to make something basic appear spicy.

Look just past the equator of a person’s outfit and an undershirt will be peeking out. Sometimes it’s a smidge of white cotton, as if the shirt came untucked and were waving a meek hello. Other times, the undershirt is out all the way around, like the wavy edges of a teeny tablecloth. It’s the T-skirt.

“Including a little bit of undershirt makes a look greater than the sum of its parts,” said Bijan Shahvali, the brand director at Corridor. “It becomes more than shirt plus sweater plus pants.”

Is this a minor observation, like calling out a single shadow in a Diane Arbus photo? Perhaps. But fashion is all about those minor off-notes.

These outfits prove that the smog of normcore hasn’t cleared. We still need something to complicate the same predictable elements: navy sweaters, green jackets, jeans, dark shoes. The peeping undershirt injects some deliberate disorder.

“It fits into this of-the-moment version of sprezzatura — a word I am reluctant to use with a straight face, but it’s good shorthand nonetheless — where a perfectly composed outfit is shunned for its lack of visual interest,” said Nick Williams, an owner of Small Talk Studio, which used plenty of T-skirts in its latest look book. “It’s in key with the current love for cummerbunds and other waist wraps, especially in women’s wear.”

This styling trick evokes a human touch. A flaw that is chosen. It’s anti-A.I. dressing. We keep seeing these things in fashion: rumpled textures, one shirt tail yanked out, stripes clashing with other stripes. This kind of controlled rule-breaking is part of what makes this new chapter of Celine, or the work of a stylist like Alexis Asquith, so appealing.

Of course, when something starts catching on like this, it gets copied and eventually looks, well, just as contrived as something spewed by A.I.

Polo heads rise

It has been 10 years since the New Zealand photographer Tom Gould and the Brooklyn rapper Thirstin Howl the 3rd released “Bury Me With the Lo On,” their reverent coffee-table tome dedicated to the people whose obsession with Polo drove them to steal it from department stores in the tristate area.

The book, with its photos of brag-worthy collections and tales of friendships struck over a shared love of a “Snow Beach” anorak or a silk polo shirt, became a collector’s item. (A first edition recently sold on eBay for $400.) Not long after its release, Ralph Lauren wrote to them expressing his admiration of the book. Gould has since shot Polo Sport campaigns, while Howl has appeared in R.L. ads.

In the decade since “Bury Me” was released, Lauren has reissued many of the jackets, knits and polos documented in the book. This week, Howl and Gould are introducing a new edition, with an added chapter on Polo wearers in prison. I spoke with them just before they left for Polo Fest in Tokyo, a gathering of R.L. resellers and collectors organized by the brand where the two men will debut the new edition.

Thirstin, you expressed that you didn’t really expect Ralph Lauren to react to the book. Would you say that kind of speaks to how your love for Polo was always external to the brand itself?

THIRSTIN HOWL THE 3RD: All that mattered to me, even when I took these photos, is that I was looking good and I wanted to capture that moment. This is way before social media. Pictures to me, even back then, were always receipts of proof that you actually lived that life or you’re the fly guy that you say you are.

Since the book came out, have you unearthed other communities of ’Lo Heads?

HOWL: Oh, it happened before the book. The book is the surfacing of all the different communities of Polo collectors from different areas. It covers Queens, it covers Harlem, it covers Jersey, New Zealand, Japan — all the places that were touched by the movement and the people who added it on to make it a religion. Because this is religious at this point. It’s a religious garment like a kufi or a yarmulke. Especially in hip-hop, it’s blasphemy to not wear Polo when you show up.

How do you feel looking back at the book now?

TOM GOULD: I enjoy looking back because it takes me back to the time in 2016. It allows me to reflect on the journey. We’ve also been part of this beautiful ride. We’ve traveled the world together.

HOWL: We’ve danced in the clubs together — don’t forget that part.

GOULD: When I look at the book, it’s with a sense of pride that we made something that I know the people documented in it hold very dearly because it’s their lives. Since the last book, a lot more people have passed away. In the back there’s a section, “Rest in Polo,” and we’ve had to add two more pages for people close to Thirstin, close to the community in general, who have been lost.

HOWL: I get photos of everyone who passes away in their coffins, wearing all their Polo. It haunts me at night sometimes. I even ask people not to send them because it’s just been a little bit overwhelming, and some people just wanted to show me to let me know he went with his ’Lo on in his coffin.

What do you think of Polo right now?

HOWL: I’m a guy who loves the new stuff. I’m not stuck on the classics and the vintage because I was there, you know, I lived it.

I have to ask: When you’re planning for a trip like this, how much clothing do you bring? How much Polo is going in the bag?

HOWL: I have one room just for my wardrobe, and there’s so many different options laid out. I’m not even paying any attention to what the weather is. I’m just going to do what I’m supposed to do, regardless of the temperature.

At this point, do you think you’ve seen all the Polo in the world?

HOWL: Oh, of course not. There’s always something somebody shows me from the past where I’m like, Wow, I never knew this existed. That’s a constant thing at this point because the community is so big.

Other things worth knowing about:

The Virgil Abloh Foundation announced a new exhibit at the Shed in New York comprising nearly 1,000 artifacts from the designer’s career. It includes items from Off-White, Abloh’s run at Louis Vuitton and more than a few skateboards and Nikes — but also Abloh’s MacBook Pro, which is like getting to glimpse Leonardo da Vinci’s brushes. “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” opens Dec. 10 and runs for five weeks.
Greta Lee in Dior at the Academy Museum’s gala? Very good. Also, yes, ASAP Rocky and John Waters wore Chanel tuxes. No, I do not think this means Chanel men’s wear is on the way. It’s just the red carpet! Let’s move on.
Eckhaus Latta (which we speculated could take over Calvin Klein in the last edition of The Fashions) is opening a new store at 27 Ludlow Street in Manhattan this weekend.
And this is a niche one, but Jake Booth, a sort of everywhere man of the downtown fashion world, is opening a pop-up store this weekend at 110 Bowery. It will have wares from The Fashions favorite Giovanna Flores, as well as Susan Cianciolo, the artist Shane Gabier, Sky High Farm Goods and many more.
The Victoria’s Secret fashion show is a thing that still happens.

What we’re reading, watching and listening to:

“Two Girls” is an exploration of the infamous shock-porn video, but the one-act play is more poignant than prurient. To create the laugh-out-loud script, Eliya Smith used verbatim dialogue from interviews with adults who watched the video in adolescence, as they struggled to recall the details and grappled with how it might have shaped their sexuality. It’s still playing at Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village.
A.O. Scott on John Berger: “For him, the act of looking — the artist’s and the spectator’s — carries primal human impulses of curiosity, pleasure and awe.”
If you’ve already watched “You Can See Anything,” dive into the many great articles, discussions and pieces of criticism. Then, while you’re at it, listen to this episode of “Hard Fork,” in which Max Read speaks to three journalists who covered Elizabeth Holmes. (If you haven’t seen it — restrain yourself.)
“I examined his ass, and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Studied him. He’s got a jawline.”