Balenciaga Apricot Tape Hoodie Review: A $56.42 Pullover Where the Drawstring Tells the Story

Priya Raghavan, Reviews Editor

What we ordered, and what landed

We ordered the Balenciaga Apricot-Colored Yellow Tape Hoodie, SKU 7705080720, in two sizes from the listed XS–L run. The page price was $56.42 against a stated original of $67.28. The parcel reached our Rotterdam desk with the rest of the apparel samples and was opened under the same 5600K lightbox we use for every garment, before any tester put it on.

The listing's spec block gives no shipping weight, so agent-side freight estimates will be built from category averages rather than this item. Budget for a mid-heavyweight hoodie when you consolidate a haul.

How we checked it

• Laid flat and measured at the chest, body length, shoulder and sleeve with a steel tape, then read against the listing chart.
• Set the agent's QC photographs beside the parcel contents, item by item, before the garment was worn.
• Inspected the front and back print for registration and edge sharpness, plus cuff and hem stitching, pocket bar tacks and the drawstring tips.
• Put it on three testers across three body types for a full working day each.
• Cold-washed one sample and re-measured it. That is a single data point, not a durability verdict.

The fabric is the strongest thing about it

The seller specifies 100% cotton in a 480 g/m² plain knit. In hand that reads dense and dry rather than brushed, with a loopback reverse and a weight that puts it in proper mid-heavyweight territory — noticeably more substantial than a standard fleece, and a different animal from the curly fleece Balenciaga uses on its retail Tape Type pieces.

Across a full working day on three testers we found no pilling at the cuffs, the underarm or the pocket mouth, which is where inexpensive cotton usually announces itself first. The print sits flat, front and back, with clean edges and no halo around the lettering. Cuff and hem edges are straight, the pocket corners are bar-tacked, and the drawstring tips are finished rather than heat-sealed.

Fit, size by size

We measured two sizes. Between them the grade was consistent: the chest and body length moved in step with the chart rather than jumping, and the shoulder line stayed where the pattern intended. The fit is relaxed without being oversized — our shorter tester took the smaller size and wore it over a tee without the hem collapsing, while the taller two wore the larger size with room through the body and a sleeve that ended at the wrist bone rather than the knuckle.

The weakness is documentation, not cut. The listing offers no shoulder or sleeve figures, so anyone between sizes is guessing on the two dimensions that decide whether a hoodie looks slouchy or simply big. Measure a pullover you already like and compare chest and length directly.

The drawstring question, and the $1,333.58 gap

Balenciaga's retail Tape Type hoodies list at $1,390 at Saks Fifth Avenue, a figure corroborated by Editorialist: curly fleece, dropped shoulders, a ripped front pocket, a hood without drawstring, made in Portugal, dry clean only. Harrods carries a zip-up Tape Type at €1,200, and a cotton loopback Tape Logo jersey hoodie sits around £1,050 elsewhere.

Our parcel is a different construction: plain knit, a standard kangaroo pocket, and a hood with drawstrings at the opening. Between $56.42 and $1,390 there is a $1,333.58 difference, and a real part of it is design rather than provenance. Anyone buying this expecting the retail silhouette will be disappointed by the drawstring and the pocket alone. Anyone buying an apricot pullover with a dark wordmark across the chest at a twenty-fifth of the retail price is looking at the right page.

We can verify what arrived, how it is built and how it wears. We cannot verify authenticity from a parcel, and nothing in this review should be read as doing so.

Where the listing works against the buyer

How we would wear it

The apricot is warm and pale, closer to peach than orange, so keep everything below it quiet: charcoal trousers, dark denim, black sneakers. It layers under a shell without bunching at the shoulder seam, which is the practical test of a 480 g/m² knit in a Dutch autumn. Worn as the main layer on a mild day, the colour does the work and the lettering supplies the only contrast.

Before you order

Choose from the option photographs, not the title line. Ask the agent for QC shots of the chest print and the hood opening, and confirm which colourways are actually in stock given the grey and washed-blue language in the copy. Prices and listings move; our figures are from the date of our order.