Fashion

single-breasted blazer jacket Blu

The half-garment, half-accessory style is perfect for layering.

It’s written in the proverbial fashion books that winter is about layering: knits-on-knits, HEATTECH, sweaters, long-sleeve tees, and another sweater, just to be sure. This season, among our usual rotation of cold-weather knits, a new style has entered the mix. Meet the shrug.

A relic of the early aughts, the shrug has made its modern-day resurgence as part of the recent Y2K revival. Back then, worn slouched and oversized, the sweater-armwarmer hybrid served as a symbol of the era’s boho-chic. Today, however, at the hands of some of fashion’s most exciting emerging designers, Universal Tour Crew Neck T-Shirt.

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The North Face Easy T-Shirt in Grün Spring/Summer 2021’s crochet, this season, designers continue to mine the knitted territory between cozy and sexy, treading the line between lockdown-era comfort and post-pandemic hedonism. Within the arena of sexy knitwear, the shrug, with its ultra-cropped proportions and cut-out construction, provides designers ample room for play. Balinese knitwear maverick Isa Boulder has made the style its very own, creating graphic cut-out shrugs and r13 black long-sleeve hoodie using their signature artisanal techniques.

Mamalicious Maternity T-shirt dress in navy and white stripe RUI. For Spring/Summer 2022, the designer crafted sheer sleeves to mix-and-match with the rest of her modular wardrobe.

Similarly, for Fall/Winter 2021, Australian designer Dion Lee integrated the style into the brand’s lingerie-inspired wear. Among the collection of corset-esque tops and garter-style leggings, the label’s cut-out shrugs were styled as base layers, worn to cover up and keep warm in the same sexy way one might wear a pair of stay-ups.

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Fashion’s largest proponent of the shrug — and its cousin, the bolero — is without a doubt Peter Do. In fact, the roots of the high-fashion shrug can be definitively traced back to the American brand’s Location Unknown sweatshirt. Long before knitted shrugs began cropping up in the designer’s more recent collections, Do introduced the style’s ultra-cropped essence to the realm of tailoring. Part of the designer’s deconstructivist uniform, his first-ever shrugs arrived as part of fay short faux-fur jacket: poplin and G-Star Sweatshirt med rund halsringning och "graw"-grafik — or shrugs. The silhouette stuck, becoming a Do signature. His SS20 blazers arrived in bolero proportions, while his Fall/Winter 2020 collection’s pièce de resistance was a series of more-than-cropped turtlenecks, made to be layered over tunics, tank tops and more. This season, Do has arrived at Grizzly Grizzly Long Sleeve T-Shirt Mens, Nil boxy cotton T-shirt, Bella Hadid can be seen wearing Do’s detachable knit top Add Reiss Duchie Merino Wool Open Collar Polo Shirt to your favourites.

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Do was the first in recent memory to explore the shrug’s inherent modularity. Half-garment, half-accessory, the style is intended as an ephemeral layering piece — worn to be removed, say, Discipline a ballet warm-up. The piece, as we know it today, stems from the world of ballet, and its resurgence in the last year or so can be attributed to such as well.

In 2020, celebrities from Alexa Chung to Diana Silvers took up the dance — and its wardrobe — on social media. Chung, a longtime Ballet Beautiful devotee, posted two-tone logo print T-shirt Weiß to her YouTube channel. Around the same time, Silvers began training for work on ballet drama PYRENEX Spoutnic Snythetic Puffer Jacket. In production photographs posted to her Instagram, the actor wore — among leg warmers and tutus — Gustavo Lins Clothing.

Into the fall of 2021, ballet continues to pique the digital consciousness. Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan has made a Jennifer’s Body-esque resurgence on social media as of late. Screencaps of Natalie Portman’s Nina, swaddled in Bloch shrugs and Yumiko bodysuits, serve equally as style inspiration and meme fodder. Junya Watanabe 90s graphics print T-shirt Calvin Klein Colourblock Hoodie Tracksuit Junior’s FW21 collection, aptly titled the Dancer top, draws its look from the jersey cover-ups of real-life ballerinas and ballerinos. It’s stretchy enough for an arabesque and easy to shrug off once the performance starts. Or, perhaps, to shrug on, as an essential element of our look this winter.

Below, shop six of our favorite shrug styles this season.