The best white shirts are the foundation of any stylish man’s wardrobe
The most beautiful white shirt dresses are always indispensable outfits. Maybe you just bought first suit. (Congratulations and good luck at that interview.) Maybe you just bought your 50th. (Congratulations, and enjoy that office with the free coffee machine in the corner. Enjoy a good cup of coffee.) Or maybe you are out there somewhere. But no matter where you are in your suit shopping life and whatever your suit budget is, this holds true: you could certainly use another white shirt to go with them.
They are what you need for every conceivable event in life. Don’t believe us? Here, see this. First day at work: wear a white shirt dress. Last day at work: white shirt dress. Wedding? White shirt. Bar mitzvah? Confirm? Graduate? White shirt. Funeral? Condolence flowers, white brooch flowers. You get the idea. And the white shirt dress is also what you need in relatively high fashion situations. Pitti Uomo peacocks, red carpet heroes and all the stars at the charity dinner each have a secret weapon – besides animal-colored coats and shawl-collared suits and flats floor passage. They have the perfect white shirt dress. But what separates perfection from the workday?
Here’s your answer: The perfect white shirt needs to do a few things, but it needs to do them perfectly. Rule number one: no soft collars. All of our favorites can support a thick knot if that’s your thing, or will stand on their own on their own sans tie. Rule two: They’re cut the way any shirt should be cut in 2022 (or 2021, or 2020 or 2042), thin but not too tight. They stay neat without the puffy mess that most “casual/classic/easy/comfort” fit shirts offer above the waistline. Some of our picks are 100% cotton, some have a bit of stretch in the mix, but they’re all designed to stay sharp and built for breathability. It’s the August sauna of a wedding? You will stay cool.
And that’s really reason enough to buy one, two, or all of the shirt dresses we’ve picked out here. They’ll make you stylish in every imaginable way — whether you’re wearing number one, number 50, or somewhere in between.
The Best American White Shirts (by Way of Japan)
The Japanese have a knack for taking in elements of American culture, obsessing over it, and then selling it back to us better and purer than we do ourselves. Blue jeans became a real thing there starting in the post-war 50s; now brands like Kapital is leading the way in the denim game. On the culinary side, they saw our greasy cheeses and elevated us to whole wagyu buns. And after Ivy League style hold in Japan, brands such as Kamakura Shirts emerged to face failure as the world’s Brooks Brothers and J.Presses began to wane in quality and diverged from the true preppy-trad path. For a quarter of a century now, Kamakura has been making top-notch American shirts, unmistakably with a price-to-quality ratio that is sometimes hard to find in the states today. This shirt is trimmed and streamlined from a spiked Oxford fabric, with the perfect sized collar style like Paul Newman used to dig. It’s the kind of shirt dress you pick up and look at and mutter, “They don’t make them like it this again. “Only they do – just not here.
The best white shirt for your next state dinner
If genealogy is what you’re interested in — or more accurately, maybe capable care about — in your dress shirts, the Charvet is the walk. The Academy in Paris opened the world’s first shirt shop in 1838, conceived the first shirts with attached collars and cuffs, and has dressed everyone from JFK, Obama to Proust and Matisse. Today, their shirts are meticulously designed by a team of just 50 tailors — each trained for at least four years — from the finest fabrics in the world, such as This super soft cotton with silky shine and lifelike -pearl buttons. If you don’t think a plain white shirt dress can scream “PURE LUXURY,” that means you don’t have the privilege of sliding on one of these classic mugs.
The most beautiful simple no-frills white shirt
Maybe you like to keep things as simple as possible. Your friend Marie Kondo bought your wardrobe not too long ago, and all you keep is a number black jeansa couple of pairs white sneakersmaybe one sundries jacket. This is the shirt that completes your austere ensemble. Even by the standards of a white shirt, it feels minimal and solid, with a sharp laser cut and a well-balanced collar. And, because it costs just under $100, you can afford to buy a few to retool your almost-empty wardrobe.
The most high-fashion flexible white shirt
Think there’s no more room to renew a white shirt dress? As usual, Virgil Abloh is amazing want you to think again. The late head of Louis Vuitton applied his signature a few degrees off-centre vision to the most classic of the classics and his will, making it new. spectacularly chipped without stripping any of its timeless features. To do the trick, he starts with the collar – firm, pointed, used for sans ties – and then pulls down, subtly adorning the bodice with the maison’s legendary monogram. through a complex weaving technique that renders it a distinct, almost frayed texture. You can perfectly match it to give fancy fancy dressbut more than any other option on this list, it can stand completely on its own—an attention-getting all-in-one package.
The best white shirt in the mall
Gold standard of affordable shirt dress, thanks to a sturdy mid-size dotted collar, a nice trim cut, and a translucent fabric that’s enough to hide your nipples. Let’s start J.Crew off with their insanely good deal and pick up three: one white, one light blue, and one striped pink. ($175 for three.)