If you’re looking for an icebreaker at a party (because “what conspiracy theory do you secretly buy into?” is too fraught a question these days) that is attended by at least one woman who grew up in the 1990s, might I humbly suggest bringing up the girl-cut tee. This is a move with a 100% success rate for me across three continents. “Oh God, yeah, I hate that,” says literally whichever woman I’ve asked about this. Yes, another unsuspecting millennial whose rage-candle I have lit about my grievance!
For the uninitiated, the “girl-cut” or “fitted” (or sometimes just “women’s”) t-shirt is characterized by a few specific design choices, often (but not always) appearing on a single cursed garment: a nipped-in waist; a long, bowed hemline that usually goes well past the standard waistline of a pair of jeans, threatening to reach one’s crotch; a slightly scooped neckline (to suggest the concept, if not the lived reality, of cleavage), and, probably most irritating, those teeny tiny cap sleeves with a a centimeter of fabric digging into your armpits and cinching like mini mountaineering sleeping bags around one’s biceps. (Here are some select examples.) Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, they could be spotted at malls, merch tents, sports games, camps and conferences, and apparel sites on the prehistoric internet, often with the same general design or logo as the men’s option but with inane, uncomfortable feminizing modifications. (To be clear, I’m not mad at the baby tee, which the luminaries at the New York Times declared officially back in November.) These shirts are designed, presumably, by someone who has only ever seen sketches of women in medical textbooks. They scream, I need you to help me carry things.
If it were a question of taste, maybe I would let things slide, find another hill upon which to die. But there are also clear practical downsides to these girly-pop tops. Besides being a fabric-based monument to the male gaze, you’re going to pit out immediately. I mean that literally. These are items of clothing that only work if you’ve had your armpit pores chemically plugged, otherwise, there will be sweat stains in under five wears.
Additionally, in the course of my research riling people up at parties, several women complained to me that the actual material of the shirts was worse—a fact later confirmed by my friend, a clothing designer who’s worked on items that later hit the shelves of Walmart, Target, and Macy’s.
“Generally, most women’s items are made to withstand less. The literal weight of the fabric is thinner,” she said after I texted her that I had “an extremely high stakes thing to pick your brain about.” Apparently, men’s t-shirts are made of heftier stuff, often 100% cotton, making the shirts a bit stiffer and more durable. “With women, the fit is generally a bit more close to [the] body and less boxy, making a super heavy 100% cotton a poor choice.” Form follows function, my ass.
Of course, it’s possible there’s someone out there whose precise bodily proportions and desire to look like a mall mannequin has endeared them to the girl-cut tee. That’s great for her; she’s probably an NFL cheerleader or an aluminum-free deodorant spokeswoman now. But that’s not me. I don’t care that my arms are the size and strength of al dente linguine; I will shroud them in durable cotton as is my right.
As a staunch fitted tee abolitionist, I avoided these fuckass shirts for so long that I almost didn’t notice that they stopped being so prevalent. In what scientists are now calling “the Billie Eilish Effect,” baggier clothing has become popular for women in recent years; likewise, fitted tees on men are more in vogue. The last t-shirt I acquired (a cream-colored shirt with a red-and-green stripe underneath the word “GNOCCHI” in the Gucci font) is unisex. When I wear it, my upper arms know the touch of a gentle breeze.
The girls of the mid-2020s have no idea how good they really have it. Their Eras Tour t-shirts have a normal hemline. When they see a grotesquely fitted tee, it’s being peeled off the chest of a male character on a Riverdale rerun. They idolize Y2K fashion without respect for their elders, who lived through such blighted torso dynasties as the deep V to get to where we are today.
Listen, I’m happy we’ve made progress as a society, and that our daughters and Gen Z co-workers need not suffer as we did. But I fear that this sleeve equity milestone is going unnoticed and unmarked; a disservice to the generations of women who came before. For too long we were all in the prison of these vacuum-sealed t-shirts, unable to lift our arms above our shoulders. We should be holding galas honoring oversized shirt enthusiasts, and banging pots and pans for the essential fashion workers who eliminated the scourge of gendered tees from our closets.
Why the girl-cut tee was popular at all remains a mystery, but I think it’s important that we, the ’90s kids, keep harboring that resentment. 2025 is a dangerous moment to be alive—I mean, ballet flats are back. I recently saw an influencer layer two tank tops. At a time where we’re losing many of the rights we’ve long held unalienable (and as low-rise jeans return from the dead), let’s not backslide here.
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Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
