Ugly Shirts Are The BDE Of Summer 2018 Fashion

I love summer, I love the way the sun makes my spots clear up and my hair turns a little ginger. I love that it gives me an excuse to stay out late on a Tuesday night drinking Aperol Spritz’s with the free abandon of a freelancer without a 9-to-5 to be up for. I also, love the way, it makes the ugliest, most ridiculous of items suddenly look appealing. Yes, I’m talking about flip flops and bucket hats, and most importantly of all the patterned shirt.

Call it irony, or a physical reaction to the rise of athleisure and streetwear, but I want to dress in obnoxious gauche blouses. It’s like designers have been in cahoots for winter as between the wild mash-up graphics of Prada’s bowling shirts and the manic 80s patterns of Balenciaga’s blouses, there’s a burgeoning trend for frenzied colour combinations and berserk prints in this arena,

Part of the pleasure of this particularly niche trend lies in its silhouette. With a camp little collar and a buttoned-up front, it’s a rather formal fit for these personality-driven designs. Dancing in that gender-neutral middle ground, this item surfs the millennial trend for coopting menswear. As runways now show gendered collections under one umbrella show, it’s natural that the staples of different sexes get muddied. Hence, while on screen the Hawaiian shirt has been the sartorial pin-up of Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet, Tom Cruise in Cocktail and Christian Slater in True Romance, it doesn’t lose an ounce of its appeal as it slips into the womenswear vocabulary.

The gaudier the print the better, in my eyes. Not only is a brash Hawaiian, tie-dye or scarf-printed blouse the perfect antidote to the mass casualisation of our wardrobes, but it’s also god damn comfortable. Add mules and a slip skirt and it’s surprisingly salacious, put on high-waisted jeans and Converse and it’s ready for brunch, or just tuck it under your favourite suit and suddenly the office will seem a brighter place to be.