If last year’s crown going-out jewel was the pin top, this year, it’s the crisscross tie top. Both hot girl summer styles feature thin straps, but the former is held together by a teeny tiny pin between the bust while the latter wraps around the waist with an adjustable tie. The slight evolution is a sign the micro-fashion trend won’t be entirely gone anytime soon, so make room in your closet for this dainty but flirty top. It’s the designated going-out top of summer 2022.
One of the best perks about this playful design is that it comes in different variations of casual T-shirts, halter tops, puff-sleeve blouses, one-shoulder tanks, and more. Thus, there’s a top for everyone’s style preferences and from your favorite brands like Anthropologie, Zara, H&M, and Free People. Also, if you’re iffy about spending big bucks trying a daring look that you might not like, no worries, I’ve been there. Thankfully, we’ve found affordable ones that you can grab for a little more than $10 below. Ahead, browse 10 of the best crisscross tie tops and consider shifting your next going-out top for this trendy one.
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Emma Rogue has been an avid thrifter all her life. As a kid, she stopped by a secondhand shop near her gymnastics club in Bedminster, NJ, every weekend to scour the racks for used clothes from brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister instead of buying the pricier models at the local mall. A decade later, she turned her lifelong affinity for thrifting into one of Manhattan’s most popular vintage shops, Rogue.
The store, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, is known not only for its vast selection of ’90s and Y2K clothing, but as one of the city’s most coveted hangout spots — both online and IRL. On the weekends, the Lower East Side-based shop, whose TikTok channel boasts over 170,000 followers, hosts pop-up events that draw the city’s Gen-Z crowd en masse. “I didn’t really know what to expect,” she says of the overwhelming response. “I’m still winging everything.”
For Rogue, this is the kind of scene that defines her space. Since opening in 2021, she’s hosted a myriad of events, including pop-up shops with brands like Brooklyn-based Could Be Maria and Izzy’s World, as well as creators like Paige Sechrist, not to mention welcoming celebrities like Post Malone and Gossip Girl’s Whitney Peak. “At this point, we’re also a venue,” she says.
The store’s success is part of a bigger phenomenon happening in New York’s thrift and vintage community. Alongside Rogue, other TikTok-famous stores have also become the most coveted places to shop, network, and hang out in IRL, including Tired Thrift — located in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, and owned by cousins Lediona Zharku, 23, and Elona Zharku, 22 — and Funny Pretty Nice — owned by Natalia Spotts, 26, with two locations in Manhattan’s East Village. In their quest to establish go-to spaces for curated vintage shopping, they’ve also reshaped what it means to be a brick-and-mortar store in the era of TikTok, creating communities that exist in the virtual and real worlds. “We like to say that we’re a store for Gen Z, by Gen Z,” says Lediona Zharku.
What started as New York City’s vintage shopping scene in the 1960s, with hole-in-the-wall stores on Essex Street, has become a bonafide industry that ranges from chains like Beacon’s Closet and Buffalo Exchange to vintage shows like the Manhattan Vintage Show and A Current Affair and one-of-a-kind storefronts like Designer Revival. Pandemic lockdowns hit the thrifting scene hard, but a TikTok boom is helping popularize this landscape for a new generation: The hashtag #nycvintagestores has over 50 million views, while #nycvintage has 8 million views.
Scrolling through the stores’ TikTok and Instagram channels, it’s easy to see why crowds have flocked to them in search of treasures from yesteryear: Their feeds are rife with behind-the-scenes videos from the stores’ employees, on-the-street interviews about the latest trends, and ideas for how to style going-out tops, low-rise jeans, crochet pieces, and chunky accessories that have become eponymous of Gen Z fashion. Moreover, the channels have a personality of their own that position the owners and employees as cool, stylish kids you want to hang out with, as well as carry a piece of their fashion sense home.
“I think Gen Z likes to see there is someone who is sort of running the show,” says Spotts. This might explain why Rogue’s interviews with her community generate over 30,000 views. It might also be the result of these conversations happening organically; whenever she’s at the store or during weekend pop-up events, she pulls customers aside to ask them questions like, “What’s your least favorite fashion trend right now?” and “What brand is an immediate turnoff?”
For stores like Tired Thrift and Funny Pretty Nice, the retail strategy has long relied on TikTok. That’s because, when the stores launched amid the pandemic, the social media platform was their only marketing medium.
Tired Thrift’s owners opened their location in November 2020 after years of selling at pop-up markets and online. Soon after, they posted a TikTok video giving a behind-the-scenes look at putting the shop together, from painting the murals to getting clothes in. The next day, there was a line out the door. “We didn’t know the power of TikTok until that video went viral,” says Elona Zharku, adding that two years later, they’ve grown to over 50,000 followers. “It was a game-changer.”
Spotts says that Funny Pretty Nice is also the brick-and-mortar manifestation of TikTok views — only, in her case, it’s her personal accounts that attract the most customers. “I think the real draw was to the community that I created versus the actual store,” says Spotts, who has over 130,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 45,000 followers on Instagram. “It was definitely what I was posting that was getting people in.”
For Spotts, her online branding is heavily intertwined with her shop’s, particularly because it was all born out of pop-up events she hosted in her apartment amid the pandemic. “It was a lot of people who were just very fresh on the scene, coming into their own, finding their own niches online,” she says. “I think that that created an incubation center.” Similarly to Spotts, Rogue has also cultivated an online presence that rivals her store’s, amassing nearly 45,000 followers on Instagram and almost half a million on TikTok. The tagline for her store’s TikTok channel simply reads: “Shop Rogue with Emma.”
Spotts sees this new wave of retail success as a continuation of the city’s long history of vintage shopping — with a twist — rather than a new phenomenon. “I think a lot of people were very surprised about this retail boom in New York City that is happening now, especially over the past couple of months,” she says. “I don’t think retail was ever dead, it was just not fun.”
As this new fashion community blossoms in New York City, the stores’ Gen Z owners are optimistic — not only about the future of secondhand shopping and the retail scene in New York but how their generation’s social media tools usher in a novel era for the city’s long-standing vintage fashion landscape. “I’m not 100% sure how this sort of boom is going for all of us,” says Spotts, “but hopefully it’s going to be a permanent space where we can all stick around.”
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Skylar Diggins-Smith wants you to know that she’s a hooper with style. On August 2, the six-time all-star and Phoenix Mercury Guard released her first-ever capsule collection with PUMA Hoops, called Desert Sky. The four-piece capsule is a great blend of athleisure and street style, with duality and versatility in every look. There’s something for every Diggins-Smith fan. The collection includes a Desert Sky jersey dress, basketball shorts, a graphic tee, and her signature TRC Blaze Court Desert Sky sneakers.
In 2018, Diggins-Smith was the first WNBA player to join PUMA when they relaunched their basketball division. For this collection, she was able to be hands-on throughout the entire process, from mood-boarding the vibe of the looks to the actual styling. Desert Sky is a representation of Diggins-Smith as a player who is balancing her career, family, and being a mom. These pieces are a fusion of her basketball influence and fashion sensibility — easy to style on and off the court. From the bold color palette inspired by sunsets in Phoenix, Arizona to the graphic tee emblazoned with the affirmation “You Do You” (something Diggins-Smith’s mom always told her growing up), with this capsule get a peek inside the life of the WNBA superstar.
Unbothered chatted with Diggins-Smith to learn more about the making of her Desert Sky capsule collection. She opened up about how her style has evolved throughout the years, and how fashion has been an outlet during an especially difficult season playing without her friend and teammate Brittney Griner.
Unbothered: What was the inspiration behind your Desert Sky Collection?
Skylar Diggins-Smith: This was my first time having complete creative control with a capsule collection and with these four pieces, I wanted to highlight versatility and comfortability. I wanted people to be able to have pieces that you could mix with high fashion pieces or dress down. It didn’t really matter ]what] your lifestyle [is]. There’s a piece that will get you.
What are three things you want people who shop for this collection to feel when they’re wearing it?
I want people to feel confident. I want people to feel empowered. I want people to feel good. You can layer the t-shirt and the dress. I really just wanted inclusivity and for people to feel included, chic, and sexy.
Where did the slogan ‘You Do You’on your t-shirt come from? Is it a daily affirmation you live by?
Absolutely! Especially on and off the court, and in every aspect of my life. It’s something my mom started with me when I was coming up. She would just say, “you do you.” And it basically always taught me to be myself. I was enough! Those are all things that my mom instilled in me. The crazy part is it still applies to me to this day. [“You do you”] was definitely something that was a huge symbol that I’m glad we were able to incorporate into a final design on the t-shirt.
“We always are going to make sure we uplift our sister and do everything we can to bring her home.”
Skylar Diggins-Smith
How would you describe your style and how has it evolved throughout the years? What are your go-to pieces in your closet?
I think it [evolved through] discovering my baseline style, what I wanted my style to be, and what I wanted it to look like. And then it deviated from there by trying out other things. I’ve been wearing a lot of earth tones. I’ve been getting into that Matrix look with the all black lately. There have been a lot of emotions that have gone into this season, so when it comes to my style, I’m just expressing myself and trying to take the time to get dressed because at one point I didn’t feel like doing it and was disinterested. Now I’ve been taking the time to express myself and try new things outside my comfort zone. My go-to pieces would have to be a suit [all black] because, you can wear it oversized, together, or mix it with other pieces like a bandeau or crop top. I also love that you can pair it with heels, boots, or sneakers as well. Also, a pair of plain hoop earrings.
How have you and your teammates’ used fashion to express the way you’ve been feeling and advocating this season for your friend and teammate Brittney Griner who is still falselyimprisoned in Russia?
Speaking for myself specifically, my outfits have been really intentional! You see it around the league as well. Outside of basketball, [we are] really expressing ourselves as social advocates and concerned citizens. I think that the reach that we have with these platforms is unique, and we are the most [outspoken] professional athletes, in my opinion. We always try to use what we have to get the message out and be supportive of social movements we’re passionate about. My BG outfit at the All-Star game meant the most to me. I was on the biggest stage to try and keep her spirit there, keep her voice there, and the message relevant for her [was important]. I didn’t even want to play at the beginning of the year, I feel like I should have been doing more, but I love how we all have been able to come together. In the WNBA, sisterhood is so important. We always are going to make sure we uplift our sister and do everything we can to bring her home.
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