Going-Out Shirts Are Ready To Groove Again
A little over a year ago, GQ made an impassioned argument in favor of the blue striped shirt, a “quiet workhorse” just as essential as a plain white tee or jeans. Now, we'd like to broaden your horizons. The coolest button-ups of the moment are striped, sure, but they're not just blue—they're every color of the rainbow, and they've been lurking in the back of the menswear psyche, biding their time, for roughly two decades.
If you tuned into TRL as a kid—or ever got dressed up for a “fancy dinner” circa 2003—then you probably remember the era’s distinct breed of multi-hued, vertical-striped button-ups. Back then, you might've referred to them as “going-out shirts", and you likely took your styling cues from the famous guys—Heath Ledger, Jay Z—who wore them, if not best, then at least memorably. Depending on how fondly you recall them, we've got fantastic/awful news: those shirts are emphatically, irrevocably back.
The hallmarks of Y2K style have been loitering on the periphery of the zeitgeist for a while now, but the shirts we're talking about here represent one of the least expected ways to revisit an era of menswear this very magazine once hoped would be lost to the AOL archives forever. Then again, this is fashion, baby: everything comes back around eventually, and it's not all that surprising that one of the decade's most popular flourishes looks way better the further we get from its heyday.
To be clear, we're not advocating for full Vinny Chase cosplay. To be even clearer, we're also beseeching you to tread carefully; bedazzled jeans and gelled-to-death hair are still dangerous territory. Beyond that, though, whether you button-up one of these suckers to “hit the town with the boys” or hit the farmer's market solo is entirely your call. If you’ve got any questions, reach out on AIM.
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