15 Best Zip-Up Hoodies for Men 2025, According to GQ Editors

The best zip-up hoodies for men have regained their throne atop the hoodie food chain, fueled by a Y2K style revival and the recognition that a zipper just grants so many useful options. Let it hang open. Let some fresh air in. Let the zip hoodie back into your life.

This isn't to say that we don't—or won't—continue to love and adore the equally perfect pullover hoodie. We're just living in a moment where both can coexist, in our hearts and in our closets.

If you had the foresight to save your zip-up hoodies from high school, feel free to crack open the attic and dust them off. (Grab your Transatlanticism CD while you're at it.) But the rest of us can take advantage of a growing zip-up hoodie renaissance. Stalwarts like Russell, Champion, and Hanes are still slinging some of the best around. Mall brands are making it a staple on the racks. And, no surprise, some of the best names in cotton craftsmanship—like Reigning Champ and Camber—have brought their considerable talents to the zip hoodie, too.

So of course we rounded up the best zip-up hoodies for men that you can buy right now. (Portable CD player not included.)

Best Zip-Up Hoodie Overall: Uniqlo Sweat Full-Zip Hoodie

Uniqlo’s no-nonsense clean aesthetic and low price point has made it a go-to for any menswear enjoyer looking for good style on a budget. While the brand excels at cashmere sweaters, T-shirts, and a slew of homerun collabs, the Japanese label’s sweats are criminally underrated. We’d go so far as to say that they should be talked in the same breath as brands like Champion and Sunspel. This zip up hoodie took us by surprise thanks to its comfy midweight, all-cotton fabric and solid construction. But the main selling point is the impeccable fit.

So many other brands cut their hoodies too long in the body and leave you looking like Jack Skellington’s pubescent brother. Uniqlo managed to cut its French terry hoodie to sit right at the hips which makes for a more classic and natural silhouette that’s neither lanky nor sloppy. Because of the fabric, the feel, and the overall fit, this is my favorite zip-up hoodie by a sizable margin. It’s my most-worn hoodie and has yet to show signs of any fraying.

Best Upgrade Zip-Up Hoodie: Reigning Champ Midweight Terry Standard Zip Hoodie

It’s hard not to sing the praises of Reigning Champ, a brand that built its fleece empire on sweatpants and hoodies. The Canadian label’s flagship midweight terry fabric has drawn the attention of streetwear royalty and menswear buffs alike and its dedication to quality has elevated the humble hoodie to oxygen-deprived heights. We named Reigning Champ’s crewneck sweatshirt and pullover hoodie as among our favorites in their respective categories, and the same goes for its zip-up hooded sweatshirt. It’s made of the same 100% cotton French terry fabric as its superlative-earning brethren and is cut with high-quality flatlock stitching for a smooth, un-bulky feel.

I had high expectations for Reigning Champ, given my previous experience, and I’m not surprised at all with how nice this zip-up is. And while I'm partial to the standard fit, it’s also available in a slim fit version, too.

Best Budget Zip-Up Hoodie: Hanes EcoSmart Fleece Full-Zip Hoodie

Hoodies were originally meant for sportswear, as warm up gear before a grueling game of football. These days, they’re more often worn for lounging on the couch to watch the kickoff. And if you want to kick it in comfort while saving your pennies for booze and amuse bouche for the big game with the boys, the best budget zip up hoodie to buy is Hanes’ EcoSmart zip hoodie. The fit is spot on—relaxed, but not sloppy, comfy in the body and the sleeves without swallowing you like a sand pit.

The fit is impressive for the price, and the overall quality means you’re getting a little more than what you pay for. It’s not a hoodie that’ll last you for too long, but it is a good quality piece for just 15 bucks. And when other hoodies offer lesser quality and worse-fitting options for about the same price? The answer is clear.

Best Fashion Zip-Up Hoodie: Our Legacy Checked Brushed-Knit Zip-Up Hoodie

The irreverent alchemists at Our Legacy have once again been mixing potions in their Swedish laboratory, only to emerge with a magical zip hoodie that levitates far above the banal “closet staple” label. They traded cotton fleece for a wool mix (with a li'l alpaca sprinkled in) for some ASMR shagginess, then hit it with a shadowy check that would blend into a wintry forest but stands out—in the best way—against a sea of gray and grayer hoodies on the street. Ribbing-free cuffs will come in handy when you want Our Legacy's hoodie to cosplay as a jacket over some trousers and a button-up shirt. The straight-to-the-top zipper? How do you say “why the hell not?” in Swedish?

Best Cropped Zip-Up Hoodie: Abercrombie & Fitch Essential Cropped Zip Hoodie

Menswear influencers will be happy to regale you with their TedTalk on the golden ratio of clothing proportions. Essentially, that means your outfit should be divided into three equal sections where the top takes up one third of the outfit. Basically, your tops should be cropped and sit closer to your natural waist. Follow it up with some high-waisted pants with a wide silhouette and you’ve instantly garnered 300K views on TikTok (RIP). With so many indie brands and influencers scrambling to make their own versions of “the perfect cropped hoodie” you’re probably tired of wading through all the choices. Do yourself a favor and go to Abercrombie.

The Moose’s version is backed by actual trend forecasters, actual designers, and actual fit models. What does that mean, exactly? It means that its cropped zip hoodie fits really well and uses surprisingly beefy fabric. It was a revelation for me, too—Abercrombie wasn’t a name I associated with hoodies, but after I saw this in person, I had to readjust my menswear word cloud.

Best Heavyweight Zip-Up Hoodie: Camber Heavyweight Hoodie

Some of the best zip-up hoodies for men are made by a brand you never see in brick and mortar stores. Camber has been crafting the most durable sweats for decades, right here in America and have been the shining example of the difference between good quality and great quality. Sure, you have to order through an old-school web 1.0 website and wait for several weeks to actually get your hoodie. But trust us when we say that the relatively minor inconvenience is completely worth it.

The heavyweight fleece is almost as thick as a leather jacket and can stand in as outerwear if you wanted it to. While other hoodies are washed to hell in giant industrial washing machines to reach a super soft texture by the time it gets to you, Camber’s actually require you to do the work yourself. It sort of feels like you’re being swaddled by an anaconda, which means if you’re a proponent of hard clothes like raw denim, you’ll like Camber’s hoodie a lot.

Best Cashmere Zip-Up Hoodie: Naadam Signature Cashmere Zip Hoodie

Cashmere zip hoodies, once the exclusive province of Silicon Valley unicorn founders and PJ-flying nepo babies, have been democratized, none better than Naadam's take. You know the brand for bringing thoughtful, sustainable cashmere pieces at “really, only that much?” prices. Its zip hoodie is as soft as it gets, with extra credit points awarded for coming in a classic fit (too many cashmere hoodies err on the side of slim) and six colors, including this decidedly handsome olive. Wear it on weekends, work-from-home Fridays, and long flights—even if it's just Economy+.

More Zip-Up Hoodies We Love

How to Style a Zip-Up Hoodie

Think of the zip-up as the pullover hoodie's elder brother, but with way more layering potential. In its most natural state, it can cuddle up to a matching set of sweatpants and a baggy tee with flair. (Top it off with a swanky necklace, crisp sneakers, and some stellar shades and you’re left with a fit on par with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at his tunnel-trotting best.)

Unzipped and left open, it can also take on the role of a picture frame ready to display your sickest graphic tee—much like the cardigan, another treasure of 2000s fashion. Or make like a mid-Aughts garage band ironically donning corporate attire and wear your zip-up over a dress shirt and baggy tailored trousers, a high-minded fashion move with a jolt of kooky Scandinavian cool.

How We Test and Review Products

Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.

Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.

How We Make These Picks

We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.

To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.

We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.

Across the majority of our buying guides, our team boasts firsthand experience with the bulk of our selects, but a handful are totally new to us. So after several months of intense debate, we tally the votes, collate the anecdotal evidence, and emerge with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best of the category right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable beaters to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs.

Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there's bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ's testing process here.)