The Dirt on Shirts

This is not a post on how to wash your clothes, although someday there might be an article about that when I'm desperately out of ideas.

Shirts are the new black.



Very versatile, very classy and very much for the man-about-town. You see, we (the rest of the world) are about twenty years behind the Europeans in shirt-wearing style. Vacation in any major European city and witness businessmen donning french-cuffed woven shirts as standard and beach-goers sporting very tasteful unpressed linen.



Well, the status-quo is about to change - starting with you.





A logo tee.

If you're 35 and above, you will hereby agree to not don tee-shirts of any brand, logo, breed or kind outside the perimeters of your home (with the very big exception of plain tee-shirts, but that is a topic for another day.). You may disregard this if you look like you've freshly emerged from the fountain of youth, but as a general rule guys above 35 should stop wearing logo-tees and start 'staple'-ing (not literally) your wardrobe with shirts - the classy kind.

The white Oxford - no wardrobe should be without it.

Shirts are like people. They come in an endless variety of colour, size, shape and design - making them the perfect template for expressing your individuality. Back in the day when everyone only wore white shirts, funky novelty ties were the way to stand out. Today there's a whole range of fantastic shirt choices out there - striped shirts, gingham shirts, safari shirts, oxfords, etc. The sheer excess of choice may potentially be mind-boggling, so here's a little guide to what's on offer.


The Striped Shirt
Currently insanely popular, striped fever hit the world hard in the early part of the 21st century. Today, every other shirt you see worn on the street is a striped shirt. Personally I feel striped shirts are becoming overly common, but nonetheless, they remain a popular, safe choice and are well on the way to classic-dom.

Multicolor Striped Dress Shirt by Paul Smith

Striped shirts make people look good not only because they add a touch of tzang and color to an otherwise boring outfit, but also because vertical stripes have the propensity to make your proportions appear longer. Yeah, kinda like a cool Jedi mind trick. And we know almost everybody wants to be taller, longer and leaner. But if playing in the NBA is what you do for a living, you might want to avoid stripes at the risk of looking like Leonid Stadnyk's long lost brother. There are limits to everything, people.


The Oxford
The perennial working man's outfit, you simply cannot go wrong with a well-constructed, well-fitting classic Oxford. Make sure you pick a color that complements your skin tone (as a general rule, lighter skin - darker colors, darker skin - lighter colors).

Oxfords are also available in the striped variety.

Oxford shirts are also a hallmark of versatility - need to dress down for a day out at the beach? All you have to do is unbutton the first button below the collar and roll up dem' sleeves (all the way up to elbow-level if you have dainty forearms.).





Linen
Linen is the fabric of life - if I had to pick one fabric to take onto a desert island, this would be it.

Linen is superior to cotton in that it's a better conductor of heat and also highly absorbent, making it a fantastic fabric for keeping cool in tropical weather. In addition, linen is one of those few fabrics that actually look great unpressed - music to the average 'I-couldn't-be-bothered', practical, straight man's ears.

Linen shirt by Lacoste.

A lil' pop trivia - Egyptians used to wrap mummies in linen, which was touted as a representation of purity and wealth. Heck, if linen's good enough for a mummy, it's good enough for me!



The Safari Shirt
Great with a tan, the safari shirt is perfect for those lazy, carefree days of summer. And for that enduring Indiana-Jones look that we know all women secretly adore.

Safari shirts are great when paired with khakis in earthy shades.

An alternative to the safari shirt is the military shirt, which doesn't look all that different, except that it's usually more intricately detailed and comes in, well, military shades.

Ladies dig men in uniform.




The Gingham Shirt
I don't really know about this one... a lot of American style writers advocate the gingham shirt, but personally I feel it takes a lot to make the gingham look fly. Nonetheless, if you're ready, willing and able to venture into uncharted territory, tread carefully around the different shades that ginghams are available in. Pick red and white and you risk looking like you're wearing a picnic mat. Or worse, like you're hosting the local rodeo.

Gingham is not an easy pattern to work with.

But if you do want to venture into gingham territory, a good way to start is to pair the shirt with a pair of dark indigo jeans or with a great earth-toned suit, as per the following picture:

Gingham with the right suit in the right shade.