Men’s style has been primarily confined to simple lines and sober colors since the days of Regency England, but the summer shirt remains one of the last places where you can still wear a bit of pattern and color. In the 1960s, shortly after Hawaii attained US statehood, mainland Americans wore Aloha shirts for the freedom they represented: a warm island life far away from cold factory work and steel offices, where you could be serenaded by ocean waves and fall asleep on the beach. Somewhere along the way, the dream got corrupted. Colorful, printed shirts, particularly those in oversized, short-sleeved form, have become the style signature of guys with outsized personalities: golfing uncles, Guy Fieri, and Smashmouth fans.
In the last few years, the summer print has started to come back in earnest. Luxury brands such as Prada and Saint Laurent have used them in their darker-themed runway collections. A little sleazier and more LA-inspired, these feel more like Scarface than “Margaritaville.” There are also upbeat designs that take inspiration from Hawaiian history, surf culture, mid-century design, leisure activities, and resort wear. For some, these outlandish shirts are little more than wearable postcards. For me, they’re a sign of positivity. I’m dreaming of wearing a printed shirt this summer with shorts and huaraches, like Donald Glover above, while listening to The Delegation’s “Oh Honey,” Kansas City Express’ “This is the Place,” and Japanese jazz trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki’s “Romance” (the last song, off the artist’s 1975 album Cat, is so gooood).
I mostly like printed shirts this time of year because they offer an interesting alternative to the pique cotton polo. A bolder shirt pushes an outfit away from business casual territory; it adds visual interest. And while I still like crisp white linens and light-blue oxford-cloth button-downs, it helps to have some bolder prints for the weekend. From retro to contemporary, here are the best prints I’ve seen this season:
The Tom Selleck Look
Some of the most natural styles are the plant motifs commonly associated with Aloha shirts. It was the popularity of the brawny, mustachioed Tom Selleck in Magnum PI, after all, that convinced men that they could have the same magnetism if they just wore a hibiscus print. And while there have been a lot of bad Aloha shirts in the past – mostly campy themes at Tommy Bahama with green parrots drawn alongside sloshing martini glasses – many today can be worn in a more contemporary way. Think: with jeans and double riders, on their own with chinos, or layered under M-65 field jackets.
To avoid looking like a party animal in a 1980s film, wear an uncomplicated print in two or three colors. 3sixteen Japanese black rayon pineapple print is perhaps the easiest to wear. It’s simple and versatile, goes well with jeans and workwear-styled chinos, and layers nicely with black double riders and olive milsurp jackets. Todd Snyder’s watery palm tree print is a little busier but still tasteful. I also really like how No Man Walks Alone layered this peach-colored Monitaly shirt with an olive seersucker suit.
Notables in This Category: Todd Snyder palm tree print, Monitaly peach-gray floral, A Kind of Guise tourist print, Corridor orange Aloha-style shirt, President’s blush pink floral print, Stan Ray pineapple prints, and the very affordable Two Palms.
Vintage-Inspired Workwear
The themes in this post aren’t clear cut, and often things in one category can be worn in other contexts. That said, many of the bolder prints I’ve been looking at have a 1950s-tinge to them. I’ve been searching for shirts I can wear with Japanese utility jackets and military-inspired outerwear. So naturally, many of the shirts have a mid-century feel, often drawing on vacation, Tiki, and workwear themes popular in the immediate post-war period. I think of these as better for slightly more vintage-styled outfits, rather than strictly contemporary styles.
As always, Ethan Newton at Bryceland’s is an excellent source of inspiration for this kind of style. He can be seen above wearing a racing green, coral print shirt made from rayon, which he produced for his store’s in-house line. He pairs it with simple, cuffed chinos and apron-toed derbies, but the look comes together in a way that’s so much more stylish than your generic print-shirt-and-chino combo. Rayon, as many readers know, is a cellulose-based fabric that drapes like silk. It feels incredible against the skin but requires hand washing (you don’t have to wash it after every wear, however, unlike cotton). Levi’s Vintage Clothing’s Shorthorn shirt has a similar mid-century style, but is a little more subdued and can be machine washed.
Alternatively, Kapital’s bandana print will go with nearly anything, including heavily worn blue jeans. I have a similar shirt from them that I often wear with a tan canvas RRL jacket, some 3sixteen blue jeans, and a pair of Kapital brown side-zip boots. The fit is a bit idiosyncratic, as you might expect from Kapital — a mix of 1950s style bowling and Aloha shirts, it has a wonky, off-kilter chest pocket and slightly cropped length (it looks great when worn if you like offbeat workwear). I also really like this boxy, blush pink shirt from Chimala, which can be worn on its own or layered open over a t-shirt.
Notables in This Category: Kapital linen bandana print shirt, Levi’s Vintage Clothing cobalt print Shorthorn, Chimala blush pink retro print shirt, Chimala navy leaf print, Byrcelands green coral shirt, and Star of Hollywood Drunken Stripes.
Contemporary
For those who want something less retro, there are lots of contemporary prints that can be worn with drawstring pants. These are slightly more modern iterations of the mid-century designs or things that draw from international traditions. Or they’re merely prints that aren’t necessarily about recreating a historical look.
French designer Simon Porte-Jacquemus is better known for his line of minuscule sized bags, which are so small that they have to be carried between a thumb and forefinger. The Cut has an amusing list of all the things that can fit into this season’s version (the smallest yet). Among the items listed: a secret; two Xanax; a whisper; a regret; a small, folded piece of paper with your dog’s name written on it; the perfect, scathing, soul-shattering comeback; and all the fucks you give. The bags are absolutely hilarious, but since I don’t carry handbags, I’ll have to settle for their amazing barley print shirts. The design has everything I want in a modern print – a bit of humor, wearability, and sophisticated use of color. The shirt comes in sunflower yellow, but I prefer the cream-on-white combination.
I also really like this pink floral from Tony Shirtmakers. The Brooklyn-based textile printer makes everything by hand – some are hand silkscreened, others literally handpainted, and all are made using a textile paint that won’t wash off during laundry. Those would look great with jeans, a vintage tee, and some Vans, or paired with “easy pants” and some huaraches. Alternatively, YMC has a blue tiger print (my barber wears a similar shirt he bought while visiting Vietnam, and he looks tremendous in it); A Kind of Guise has a black silk shirt that would pair well with black leather jackets; and ts(s) has a bold stripe for some good ‘90s vibes. For something exceedingly wearable, this Universal Works dobby weave is unassailable.
Notables in This Category: Jacquemus barley print, available in white and yellow, YMC blue tiger print, A Kind of Guise’s silk rooster shirt, Bode oversized French ticking stripe shirt, ts(s) ‘90s style striped shirt, Tony Shirtmakers blush pink hand-silkscreen floral print, and Universal Works dobby weave.
1970s Book Covers
I have fond memories of rummaging through stacks of musty books when I was a graduate student. Back then, whenever I was assigned to be a teaching assistant, my department gave me an office for meeting with undergrads. Those offices were always shared spaces – sometimes by other grad students, other times by the department when they needed extra storage space. And inside were often dusty boxes filled with books from the 1960s and ‘70s. Since I worked in one of the social science departments, those books were often about theories popular during that era: dependencia, structural Marxism, feminist critiques, etc. Some of those topics are better covered in modern literature, but wow – those covers.
Shawn Hazen’s Book Worship has one of the best online archives for book covers from the 1950s through ‘70s. Hazen collected and photographed each of those books for their graphical design, not necessarily the rarity of the titles, but as a collection, they look impressive. As Hazen writes on his site: “part of what makes these valuable to me is that they were lucky finds glimpsed while passing the Physics section at the local hole-in-the-wall bookstore, or at a library book sale in Kalamazoo.” The site is no longer being updated, but when you’re done browsing, you can dive into his other narrowly defined blog Typophonic, which is about record album covers from the same era.
This season, I’m in love with the idea of wearing one of those mid-century prints on a camp collar shirt. The two best designs I’ve seen include a retro-styled sun print from Freeman’s Sporting Club, which will be available later this month. 3sixteen is also releasing a black geometric print in June. Theirs will be made from a cotton-linen blend that has been specially washed to give it some extra softness, making it feel like a shirt that has been in your wardrobe forever. Both shirts are pictured above.
I really like 3sixteen’s print for how it looks like it’ll layer easily with Schott double riders, blue chore coats, and olive military jackets. But if you’re looking for other options, Billy Reid and Hartford also have some mid-century inspired designs. Additionally, this season’s Dries van Noten collection is full of this sensibility, but the shirts are dearly expensive and difficult to wear (this is the easiest one to pull off, but the pattern is still very loud). If you happen to be a designer reading this, I beg you: put a 1970s book cover on a camp collar shirt. It would make for the perfect summer print.
Notables in This Category: Freeman’s Sporting Club sun print, Dries Van Noten wavey designs, Billy Reid Teton, and Hartford Slam camp collar.