A Good Shirt Is Ordinary. A Great Shirt Is Art

At the very least, your shirt should be interesting. It's all too easy to slip on something simple and disappear into the background. But a truly vital shirt is not just a shirt. It is more than a shirt. It is something of substance.

That doesn't necessarily demand committing yourself to something loud. But a good shirt has personality. It's a funky-formal Camisas Manolo button-up, a paint-splashed OCDB, a loose wool number defined by texture. I was recently drawn to one of Casey Casey's new-season printed shirts whose generous form is defined by a series of dramatic faux brushstroke'd stripes. Evocative but hardly explosive.

Therein lies the key.

This is true for any really good revision of an otherwise ordinary item. The difference between a snoozy and snappy track jacket? Color and material. A jacket cut from handwoven cloth is inherently transcendent even when the form is unchanged. It really doesn't matter how big or slim or long or short all this stuff is. It matters what it's made of.

That's how you can make otherwise classic stuff feel fresh. A little twist. A little nudge. And you can push familiar fare towards newness.

Back to shirts.

The problem with shirts is that, so often, it's assumed that these things must be ordinary. Pale blue, crisp white, calm black. Boring. If you're going to lean into these unadventurous makes, that's when the form has to step up.

Lean into volume and material when the palette is plain. But don't do the opposite. Just because a layer is printed or patterned or painted, need not dictate a simpler shape.

Shirts are surprisingly malleable in that way. They are so innately classic that a funky finish fails to undermine their inherent approachability. It's just that we're tricked by decades of staid menswear to believe that wild shirts are for special occasions. Other way around. The more boring the shirt, the less it need be worn. Save that one for the special occasion.

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