is waif
TEEN BOYS LAYERS
About a month ago I sat down to watch The Bling Ring by myself. (It’s called being a cinéaste, folks.) This being a teen movie made in the last twenty years, I knew it would be coming. I knew. And then, just 20 minutes into the movie, there it was:
Israel Broussard’s Marc, at an early point in the movie when he’s still a sad loner (he later finds his way into the titular Emma Watson-led crew and becomes cool), was bedecked in an open zip-up sweatshirt over an open button-down shirt over a T-shirt.
This particular getup--open sweatshirt + button down + T-shirt, or close variations thereof--is worn by what seems to me an improbably high share of adolescent male characters in recent film and television history. The look is lazy visual shorthand for a character being a social outsider of some sort, and it’s absolutely everywhere.
Here’s the problem: they say life imitates art, but I cannot emphasize enough how thoroughly this look has never caught on in reality. No one--no one--wears that outfit, not even nerds and stoners. I’ve literally never seen it in real life. The look has become another self-perpetuating Hollywood trope with little basis in actual observed human behavior, like hanging up the phone without saying bye or being friends with your neighbors.
“This particular getup-- open sweatshirt + button down + T-shirt, or close variations thereof--is worn by what seems to me an improbably high share of adolescent male characters (plus Ellen Page) in recent film and television history.”
Core to the problem is that Hollywood drastically overestimates how often anyone wears zip-up sweatshirts, especially those ones with white trim and white drawstrings. I cannot recall even a fleeting blip in time when those were in style. I’ve never met someone who owns one.
What moody adolescent boys wear, or wore when I was in high school, is very simple: ill-fitting blue jeans or shorts and the same random flannel shirt every day. For example, here I am as a high schooler (please take note, Hollywood):
Not an open hoodie in sight. I’m lucky enough to have teeth now.
I spoke by phone with Mojdeh Daftary, the costume designer for Netflix’s Atypical and other shows, to help understand why Hollywood insists on pushing its open sweatshirt + open button-down + T-shirt agenda, even though no person living or dead has ever left their house wearing that ensemble, and no one ever will.
Maybe the ubiquity of the look has to do with its use in a few popular mid-aughts movies that turned it into a trope, I offered. Daftary agreed. “I think the Michael Cera-type look from movies like Juno and Superbad are often referenced because it’s familiar to the audience,” she said. “It’s cliché, but I think it quickly tells the audience who this character is,” which, she said, is an “awkward kid who is a little bit of an outsider--definitely not popular.”
But why does the look involve all those layers? I asked.
There are two reasons, Daftary said. Firstly, “layers will create interest in a person’s wardrobe, adding texture in a composition.” And secondly, she said, teen boys “are already angsty and moody and trying to figure out who they are every single day; I think the choice of wearing layers often times is a comfort, adding a layer of armor when they go out in the world and have to face another day.”
That all makes a lot of sense. I think we have our explanation. Thank you, Mojdeh! But still, it’s a dumb look that no one wears. Will it ever get phased out of movies and TV?
Daftary says teen boy fashion is starting to evolve, both in the movies and in real life. “I think the hoodie, T-shirt uniform seen so often in teen movies can work for some characters,” she said, but “social media [has] given teens access to art, culture and fashion across the country [...] Kids in South Dakota can watch skate videos of kids in LA or New York and be influenced by their style.” Shows like Euphoria are beginning to reflect those changes, she said.
If Daftary is right, perhaps our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end. But until then, silence is complicity. We can do more than just hope for a better tomorrow.
Hollywood has spread the specious notion that people wear open sweatshirts over open button-down shirts over T-shirts for nearly two decades, and their day of reckoning has come. Waif Magazine will not rest until we’ve documented every appearance of this fallacious costume. Please email costumeaccuracynow@waif.com with any incidents of this outfit in TV and film not already appearing in this article.