The Incredible Shrinking Men’s Shirt

Men’s button-ups are becoming brazenly more abbreviated, sometimes creeping up above the belt line.

A recession of sorts has hit the men’s clothing industry. Tops — sweaters and tees but, significantly, dress shirts as well — are shrinking at the hem like an eroding shoreline. Unfortunately, their prices don’t seem to be shrinking along with them.

But if shirttails are threatened in higher fashion, they’re already endangered at mall labels.

The shortened shirt could really be called the jelly to the big pants peanut butter. Men’s pants have been inflating in width for years. A shortened top provides proportional balance.

If you wear a longer, baggier tee with pants like that, it makes you look frumpy, it makes you look short. Adding a shorter, smaller top breaks that up. As the baggy jeans were introduced, that’s the start of the era of you cutting clothes.