“I’ve Got A Short Torso. How Do I Get In On The Crop Top Trend?”

Alyssa writes: "My torso is short compared to my legs, which makes things like crop tops more difficult for me to wear than other people. Is there a clever fashion trick out there I can use to get around my height?" With summer right around the corner, there are a bevy of hot-weather trends hitting the stores right now. Of them all, the ubiquitous crop top is one of the most fun trend to try. In fact, women are demanding that it's a right, as evident from the recent high-school protests about a girl's right to bare her belly. From the protest and the ensuing conversations about it, we discovered a lot about society's assumptions about girls' responsibilities and boys' apparent lack of them. But we also learned a much smaller lesson that applies to your situation: There are some very different definitions about what constitutes a crop top. There's a cropped top that looks a lot like a regular shirt, but hits most women at their hips. There's a traditional crop top that typically comes with sleeves or a more conservative cut, but still shows off a healthy length of midriff. Then, there's the sports bra "shirt," which on many women can look like a bra — but will hit you (and other shorter torso-ed ladies) at just the perfect spot. This cropped tanklet from 3.1 Phillip Lim gives you two opportunities to bare some skin, via the abbreviated length and those peek-a-boo grommets. If you want to play up the crop factor even more, you can wear a pair of pants that feature a lower rise (look to It gals like Kendall Jenner, Taylor Swift, Gigi Hadid, and Vanessa Hudgens for inspiration). I hope this helps. See you next Saturday.