Mock Turtleneck Sales Spike After Steve Jobs’ Death

What greater tribute to the fallen icon than being willing to wear a mock turtleneck?

Even as Steve Jobs almost single-handedly pushed our world into a futuristic new era with devices we couldn’t have dreamed of 20 years ago, when it came to his fashion sense Jobs took a decent amount of chiding for sticking with a look that hadn’t been in style since the Apple 2E—the mock turtleneck.

Jobs turned the black mock turtleneck and light blue jeans into a uniform. Absolutely unfailing, they became like a second skin. Were Jobs any less iconic, it might have seemed eccentric or just plain lazy, but with Jobs’ position as a technological guru, the perennial black mock turtleneck had an intrinsic logic—as if Jobs had divined through his creative genius that this was simply the best outfit the universe had to offer. And who were we to question, really?

Perhaps no other CEO or inventor in history has impacted so many customers so personally. It may come as no surprise then that in the wake of his death, black mock turtlenecks are suddenly flying off the shelves. St. Croix, the company from which Jobs purchased his sweaters (and that must have been a lot of sweaters, as Jobs hadn’t been seen in anything else for over a decade) yesterday told TMZ that they’d experienced a sudden extreme surge in sales after Jobs’ death. The sweater’s sales rate jumped “almost 100%” the day after Jobs’ death, says the company.

A spokesperson for St. Croix said, “We have a great respect for everything he did and we’re glad he believed in our American-made product.” The American-made pride seems a little incongruous given that Apple products are mostly made at the notorious FoxConn factory in China, but whatever.

Apple fans lining up to don the black mock turtleneck recalls friends shaving their heads in solidarity when one of them is undergoing chemotherapy. It’s clearly a look (almost) no one would adopt on their own, but loyalty is one of life’s most important virtues—and Apple fans are nothing if not loyal.

Either that, or there are a whole bunch of people planning to dress as Steve Jobs for Halloween.