Casual shirts and the rules that go with them

When it comes to casual shirts, I'm talking about shirts you don't wear with a suit (ie with jeans or chinos). The two don't necessarily have to be different mind, but when you wear a shirt with a suit we almost always have our top button done up (unless you're in a forest fire or are David Gandy or Jonathan Cake), will be wearing a tie and will avoid patterns.

If there is only one thing you will take away from this than let it be: NEVER do up your top button if you are not wearing a tie! I've seen this a lot recently and I would love to know what they were thinking. The rules for causal shirts I'm about to write out will tell you why I hate this:

Rules for casual shirts:

1. Have either the top button undone or the top two buttons undone (no more than two, as no one wants to see your chest forest). This will have the effect of visually streamlining your body and will help to make you look slimmer and less like a preppy seventeen year-old Londoner who refuses to move out of the way for women with prams and old ladies.

2. DO NOT OPT FOR PATTERNS! Now, when I say this I ought to qualify this somewhat by admitting that these can actually look great on some guys, but when so many mess this up you should probably avoid them. I'm not talking about stripes here, but swirls and hideous check patterns.

- The shirts with the tiny flowers - they're nice, but make that the only pattern in the outfit if you are going to wear one. Contrast collars and cuffs are fine, but keep fabrics simple.

3. Tuck the shirt in. You see all the time people who think that just because they're wearing jeans they don't have to tuck their shirt in. Well, you do. Especially if you're wearing a regular fit shirt because they're not cut as short as casual and tailored shirts.

4. Only wear short sleeve shirts if you hit the gym a lot. This is about personal choice really, but I don't think it really shows you off too well.

5. Roll the sleeves to your elbows if you must roll them up. No higher and no lower!

6. Try to pick either tailored or slim fit shirts as they will streamline your body more than regular fit shirts.

Examples:

This guy to the left is doing it well. The shirt fits all the criteria above and I think he's really rocking the casual look. Personally, I would undo another button, but to an extent that's personal choice - I just think it streamlines the body more.

On a side note, one thing I love doing is coordinating buttons with my other accessories, so I have one shirt very similar to the in the photo that I put black buttons on, because I loved the contrast with the material, but I also liked the matching colour between my shoes, belt and buttons.




This example to the right is not as good. Let us go though the criteria:

1.Fail
2.Fail
3.Fail
4.You can decide here...
5. Fail
6. I have to credit them here and say they've won this one.

So, I hope this has helped someone not look stupid this Wednesday evening. Until next time: Dress Hot - Be Hot!


As per usual I do not own any of the photos - I've nicked them off google images...