This Simple, Affordable Sweatshirt Trend Is High Fashion-Approved and Perfect for Cold Days

2 min read

Sweatshirts are hardly a newcomer in the wonderful world of winter dressing, but there’s a particular style making the rounds, and it’s earned high fashion’s approval. Enter: the quarter-zip. It wields a simple insouciance, a high-low excellence—completely approachable yet undeniably put-together. And after its much-lauded opening at Chanel’s 2026 Métiers d’art collection, which was held on an abandoned subway platform, the quarter-zip has broken ranks with other athleisure pieces, becoming entirely acceptable (encouraged, even!) in well-heeled circles. Outside the runways, the quarter-zip renaissance was championed on TikTok by Jason Gyamfi and Richard Minor. And many more are following suit, including fashion critics.

While the smart-casual garment’s charms are plentiful, chief among them is no doubt its endless layering potential. Whether it’s a shirt and tie sitting cleanly at the nape for days in the office, or a turtleneck poking out for coffee runs, it keeps the wearer warm and puts their styling prowess on display. In other words, it means you can feel like you’re wearing sweats while looking put-together. The ultimate win-win.

Some circles of the internet are positing that the zip-up sweatshirt’s resurgence is a recession indicator of sorts. Zippers sit lower on the pricing totem pole than their button-closure counterparts, which offer space for detail, materiality, and handwork and therefore often come at an elevated cost. Others attribute its rise to the fastening’s minimalistic look, giving a sense of order to the oftentimes chaotic ritual of dressing for sub-zero days.

No matter the true cause of its rise, designers are on board. Collections from Milan to Paris displayed the garment, with Miu Miu notably presenting a lasagna of quarter-zips stacked atop each other for Spring 2026. (Translation: you’ll need more than one.) And if the men’s shows are anything to go by, then we’re in luck: Dries Van Noten, Giorgio Armani, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton were all chock-full of quarter-zips, a sure sign that the women’s Fall/Winter 2026 collections will be in no short supply.

Whether Fair Isle versions strike your fancy or you’re after a solid color, the trending staple will get tons of mileage in your transitional weather wardrobe.