Steve Jobs’s Iconic Mock Turtleneck is Getting Reimagined

BY Evan Selleck

Published 28 Jun 2017

Steve Jobs introduces original iPhone

Steve Jobs, the founder and former CEO of Apple, was an iconic person all on his own, but he also managed to make a mock turtleneck stand out, too.

For those who didn’t keep tabs on how the turtleneck came to be, it was originally designed by Japanese designer Issey Miyake, and it’s said that Jobs had upwards of 100 black mock turtlenecks in his closet that were designed by the legendary individual. The original design was actually retired back in 2011, following the death of Jobs, but it looks like the mock turtleneck is getting revitalized, at least in some fashion.

Designer Yusuke Takahashi is a protégé of Miyake, and as reported by Bloomberg he is set to relaunch the black garment this July through Issey Miyake Inc. This new version isn’t a complete replica of the original design, though. It has higher shoulders and a slimmer silhouette.

The new long-sleeve shirt is called the Dull-T, it’s 60 percent polyester, 40 percent cotton, and it will cost $270 when it becomes available next month.

The report actually has a nice little look back on Jobs trying to put together a uniform for Apple employees, and he even commissioned Miyake to put together a vest for the company. Unfortunately for Jobs, employees weren’t a fan of the plan, and as a result he decided to simply create a uniform for himself:

“Jobs loved it and commissioned Miyake to design a vest for Apple, which he then unsuccessfully pitched to a crowd in Cupertino, Calif. “Oh, man, did I get booed off the stage,” Jobs told Isaacson. “Everybody hated the idea.” Americans, with their cult of individuality, tend not to go in for explicit uniformity, conforming instead to dress codes that aren’t even written yet.

This left Jobs to ­contrive a uniform for himself, and he drew his daily ­wardrobe from a closet stocked with Levis 501s, New Balance 991s, and stacks of black mock turtlenecks—about 100 in total—supplied by Miyake.”

The rest, as they say, is history. The black mock turtleneck is a legendary piece of clothing, and if you want to get something that harkens back to that history, but with a slightly updated design, it looks like the Dull-T might be the way to do it.

[via Bloomberg]