How Young Is Too Young for a Crop Top?

For mini Swifties and Alabama sorority girls-to-be, the Dallas boutique Dear Hannah Prep is a pink-and-green, balloon-filled wonderland. The store, a little sister to adult shop Dear Hannah down the street, is chock-full of everything a tween girl might want to wear for home games, slumber parties, screenings of the “Barbie” movie, or a school dance. Arranged in rainbow-colored stacks are: gear emblazoned with “St. Tropez,” “Montauk” and “Slay,” stackable bracelets, tie-dye sweats, mini shorts. 

And crop tops. Lots and lots of crop tops. 

For many tweens—and their parents—crop tops are a cute, innocent way to express their burgeoning interest in fashion, and their body positivity. For others, they are inappropriate. Many schools have explicitly cracked down on them in recent years. Despite, or perhaps because of, their divisiveness, crop tops for tweens have become big business.