Will dress shirts return to the office?

NEW YORK – It was not long ago when most men with office jobs seemed to have closets full of dress shirts – solid, striped, plaid, polka dot.

Even as the ways of wearing them have become more casual in recent decades, and even after the neckties they were often worn with have largely disappeared, collared dress shirts – whether button-up or button-down, tucked or untucked – have long remained a fixture of white-collar wardrobes.

The shift to working remotely during Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns eliminated the need for many to dress up for work. And when people started returning to the office, a lot of men left their dress shirts at home – a habit that has seemingly persisted as other aspects of office culture have returned.

But lately, as various companies have doubled down on their continuing efforts to get more workers back in offices, some at the forefront of fashion see signs of the dress shirt’s re-emergence.

Mr Nick Paget, senior menswear strategist at WGSN, a trend-forecasting agency, said a style trend known as “office-core” or “corp-core” – essentially a form of white-collar cosplay – has helped rekindle an interest in the garment.

He added that dress shirts had not exactly been abandoned – more like reconsidered.

“Rather than a pen-pusher replacing the same old shirt, to be worn under the same old suit every day, a different consumer is looking to the dress shirt to make a fashion statement,” he said.

These days, dress shirts are being retooled to reflect a preference for working in comfortable clothes. Versions are being made of fabric blends that incorporate cotton and stretch materials such as spandex, said fashion designer Todd Snyder, 57, who worked at Ralph Lauren and J. Crew before starting his own namesake menswear label.

“In the early 2000s, we’d never look at stretch fabrics, but now men want to move,” Snyder said.

Mr Jim Moore, men’s fashion publication GQ’s creative director at large, said he had recently noticed point-collar dress shirts coming back into fashion, a style he had not seen much since its surge in popularity in the mid-1990s.

He echoed Mr Paget’s observations about how attitudes towards dress shirts are evolving.

“I think the dress shirt is important again, but it’s not the same as it was,” said Mr Moore. “Now, I don’t think you need a ton of dress shirts, you need basic ones, but the right ones – the right colour blue, a few beautiful ones in white, a long point collar, a spread collar and a button-down collar.”

While the quintessential dress shirt – the kind often made of cotton in a poplin or twill weave – is by no means extinct, its halcyon days may be over, said Mr Sean Estok, who oversees men’s tailored clothing and shoes at Macy’s department stores.

“Customers aren’t buying four dress shirts at the same time any more. They’re refreshing one or two,” said Mr Estok. “They don’t need a closet to have 50 different dress shirts like they once did, because office life is not the same.”

The dress shirt’s reign as a white-collar wardrobe staple was once underscored by the garment’s many permutations. Versions designed to be worn with their shirt tails hanging out, for example, or the no-iron shirts introduced in the late 1970s, which were treated with a chemical process meant to prevent wrinkling.

Mr Moore recalled the popularity of no-iron shirts exploding in the 1980s, the decade when he began working at the publication, and described the time as a golden age for dress shirts that was influenced by the wardrobes of financial types associated with that time.

“The 1980s were really ruled by Wall Street and the stock market,” he said. “You’d meet with your doctor and have a suit on. Everyone had a suit on.”

By the end of the 1990s, the focus on Wall Street wardrobes had been eclipsed by an interest in the relaxed attire favoured by office workers of another kind – employees of what were then known as dot.com companies.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, brands like Band Of Outsiders and Thom Browne helped generate a new interest in dress shirts, with modern versions in playful patterns and shrunken proportions.

As did the television show Mad Men (2007 to 2015) and its 1960s-era wardrobes, said Mr Michael Fisher, a senior vice-president at Fashion Snoops, another trend-forecasting agency.

But that moment had begun to fade even before the start of the pandemic, as a growing focus on streetwear – or the hoodies, T-shirts and sneakers favoured by rappers and Silicon Valley types – pushed the office wardrobes of men back to a more casual place.

Purchases of dress shirts and suits are now often tied to special occasions such as weddings, said Mr John Tighe, president of Tailored Brands, which owns Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank. “Today’s guy is looking for dress shirts to complete the look for his special event versus wearing one for work every day. There is more importance in comfort and performance.” NYTIMES