Paisley dress shirts?
I found a highly affordable tailor, and I'd like to have several made, as my regular office wear. Am I several years too late or is the pattern still A-OK?
16 Replies
It's a very directional look. It can work really well, but probably not the best if you're otherwise wearing 'normal' business clothes.
Please describe what you mean by directional look?
By the way, pretty much the only dress code at my office is 'dress in clean and reasonably modest clothes'. Smart casual to semi-formal when meeting clients, wear whatever the rest of the time. So a regular team meeting could have one person in jeans and flip flops and another in a blazer and chinos.
I don't remember paisley dress shirts ever being in style.
By directional I mean a specific and clearly curated aesthetic across your entire wardrobe. If you are asking about this, chances are you do not have that and these aren't likely to look good with normal smart-casual-to-suits businesswear.
Can you explain more of what you mean here? I also like fun shirts, and would be interested in a paisley button-up shirt. I think my general approach would be to tone down the rest of the output so it's not too busy (plain solid colors, smooth textures). I would also want to start with something subtle, like a paisley jacquard. WDYT?
I would also add, "regular office wear" is highly variable. I don't think a paisley shirt would be ever be OK in a law office, for example.
If you wear paisley shirts with chinos and a hopsack blazer you're gonna look like loud shirts guy.
If you lean into a (for example) 70s or a mod aesthetic in cut, texture, styling you're more likely to look fashionable/stylish.
By regular office wear I guess I really mean middle of the road basic bastard or more "traditional" tailoring/menswear.
I guess I'm a loud shirts guy. Please help me.
Post fit pic
If it makes you happy that's cool.
smaller paisely is often seen as safer. bigger paisely is louder.
but if you're wearing paisey purposefully you might as well go loud
Agree with chopper that it’s kind of an all-in look
Paisley shirt needs something like a wide lapel seventies cut suit in a solid color
Heeled boots
And a charming air
You and I both, man. I mean look at these.... 💛
My coworker says he still dreams about the one time he saw a black-on-black paisley shirt, from one of those absurd $800 brands. I'm convincing him to have one made ... for a lot less :) but it's not exactly what I'd consider classic officewear in most cases. You can roll with it, depending on how formal your office is.
Robert Graham has some monochrome paisley jacquard shirts right now. They are, unfortunately, ugly, like most of their stuff, but they are so close to being 🔥
#freepaisley
Now if that's not a backhanded compliment, I don't know what is 😅