The Best Linen Shirts for Men, According to Designers

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Having to wear a long-sleeve shirt in the summer is never fun, but luckily, linen is here to save the day. The lightweight, fast-drying, and stylish fabric is great to wear in any number of places throughout those brutally warm days—whether it’s to the office, a wedding, the beach, or even with shorts as a slightly dressier weekend outfit. You can’t walk around with an air conditioner strapped to your chest — so wearing a linen shirt is basically the next best thing. Below, you’ll find our picks for the best linen shirts to wear right now.

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What the Experts Say

“I always love wearing a linen-woven shirt to the beach, actually,” says Todd Snyder, head of the NYC brand that shares his namesake. “It’s one of my hacks. What’s great about it is that it’s kind of like the guy’s cover-up. You can leave it unbuttoned, and it doesn’t stick to you. A lot of people just wear a tee shirt to the beach—that’s really uncomfortable because you start sweating and it starts to stick to you. Whereas linen dries a lot quicker [and] doesn’t get as clingy.”

Atlanta’s Sid Mashburn makes some of the best suits and dress shirts to pair alongside them, including selections like this stripe linen shirt. The spread collar provides a more casual look, but you can still pair it with a tie when you need to wear a suit. Additionally, the slim cut of the shirt gives a bit of tailoring, but it’s not so skinny as to feel like a wetsuit. We also just love the pattern of the stripe itself, which feels refined and classy.

Uniqlo’s linen shirt not only looks just as good as options double its price, but it’ll cost you less than a night out and comes in a wide variety of colors to suit your needs. Whether you need to stock up for the office or are headed to a destination wedding in a warm locale, grabbing three or four shirts at once should be relatively easy on your wallet—and keep you looking great, too.

We continue to recommend J. Crew products because they’re affordable, quality, and easily accessible (we don’t like to generalize, but it’s highly likely there’s a J. Crew at your local mall). Case-in-point: J. Crew’s Irish linen shit comes in over a dozen different hues, which means there’s one for every mood. Additionally, Bair McNutt’s linen is among the finest in Ireland, a country known for its dedication to the material. 

Sharp enough to wear for any formal event yet casual enough to rock at the beach, leave it to the Italian wizards at Brunello Cucinelli to devise a linen shirt worth saving a few paychecks up to snag. The slightly relaxed fit won’t stick to you when it gets wet and is overall sort of breathtaking in how elevated and minimalist it looks. 

Billy Reid’s beloved Tuscumbia shirts are great to pair with shorts if you want to wear something slightly more casual on the weekend. Garment dyed to obtain a rich, and the button collar adds a bit of an interesting looking if you want to wear it under a suit or to the office with a tie.

If you spend any time watching the late-night talk show circuit or scouring over celebrity red carpet photos, you’ve likely seen a cardigan from Corridor, but the brand makes so much more than grandma-like knitted sweaters, including all sorts of tasteful menswear like this linen shirt. Rendered in a beautiful off-white hue, it’s got a drapey cut to it, so you can wear it alone or under a tank to make summer more bearable.

When Snyder spoke about wearing a linen shirt at the beach, he didn’t give a specific shirt recommendation from his brand, but this Irish linen shirt is a staple of the brand—and has been for quite a while now. This faded surplus looks like its namesake, like it was found in an old Army/Navy store decades ago and is patinated to perfection.