We're not ready for the polo shirt comeback From the Perry Boys to London Fashion Week, a great classic of British subcultures is back in fashion

The fitted polo with an unbuttoned collar, religiously paired with tight jeans and cotton belts with metal closures, was happily archived in the mid-2010s when hype culture managed to shift the spotlight to sneakers and oversized outfits. It took 2020, with the enthusiastic return of vintage aesthetics such as quiet luxury, bloke core, and indie sleaze, to bring it back to the forefront among the most popular fashion items. Today, the short-sleeved cotton shirt is also a star in cinema, with projects like Challengers and Ripley reviving its codes thanks to Zendaya's monochromatic look on the tennis court and Andrew Scott's old money look in Venice. On the runway, designers like Jonathan Anderson and Martine Rose pay homage to the British roots of ultras culture. Contrary to what the rigorous and elegant silhouette of the polo might suggest, it is not the "timeless" look that makes it the item capable of riding the wave of trends again, but quite the opposite. In a polo, between a raised collar and a meticulously ironed one, lie a multitude of different cultural meanings belonging to subcultures light-years apart. The garment is unique, but a simple fold can transform its look.

The Polo in Terrace Culture

Before Prototypes took inspiration from the style of Italian ultras for SS25, the first to revive its aesthetic codes on the runway were Raf Simons, who in 2008 initiated a partnership with Fred Perry that ended in 2023, Miu Miu and Prada, even though in that case the look was linked to collegiate youth. After disappearing for a brief period from the mid-2010s to the early 2020s, recent fashion collections are teeming with polos, especially in London. From Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Craig Green, JW Anderson, Martine Rose, and Wales Bonner, the bloke core is uprooted from the austerity of the stadium curve and transplanted into an artistic context with the addition of stripes, patterns, color-blocking, and oversized silhouettes. In the United States, few designers try to approach the look, among them Eli Russell Linnetz, who proposed them tight, graphically wrinkled, and worn one over the other for SS25. From New York to London, through Milan and Copenhagen, the remnants of Terrace Culture are making their way onto the runway. Not yet established under their own name, but still stuck with the nickname given to them in recent years with bloke core, they once again demonstrate the fierce influence subcultures have on luxury fashion. Cantona's raised red collar or Amy Winehouse's tight candy pink polo have not yet made their debut, but maybe it's just a matter of time.