Camp Shirts Are Cooked. Here’s What I’m Wearing This Summer Instead

I’m out on camp shirts. I wish that weren’t so, but I believe in data—and the data says I haven’t worn a single one in 2025, despite some truly hot, sweaty, camp collar shirt weather. It’s not that I think camp shirts are bad now. (You all look fine, don’t worry.) But I haven’t been amused or enthused by a camp shirt in ages—and those are the two primary emotions a camp collar should elicit.

Sure, it doesn’t help that over the last few years my closet has overindexed on camp collar shirts. That, in turn, has me lacking basically any other shirt designed to handle a humidity level of “gross.” So in my camp shirt detox, I’ve hunted down some suitable replacements that [Marie Kondo voice] bring me joy. Nothing revolutionary—the spectrum of summer shirts is finite, and I’m not suggesting any high-wire moves here (like, say, a sweater vest with no undershirt).

My personal shirt of the summer is, I’ll admit, an obvious one: a paper-thin long-sleeve button-up made of 100-percent cotton. Particularly one with a classic—sometimes off-kilter—pattern. The sleeves get rolled up to match the mood and the climate; same goes for the number of buttons that get buttoned. My personal favorites are an old shirt from the brand ts(s) that’s been washed and dried within an inch of its life (no longer on sale, but the Brigade shirt below gets at the general vibe), and a newer 18East Jesper Shirt that fits so well I still get a little taken aback every time I wear it.

The Jesper is truly one of the best shirts I’ve ever owned, but the J.Crew Broken-In Oxford or Madewell’s Cotton Poplin Button-Up both fill the same gap admirably. I’ve also gotten some serious run out of a classic mechanic shirt from Manresa, which lets its funky detailing—quarter-zip, shorter sleeves, rich blue chambray—do the talking. A Ben Davis work shirt with a zipper and this Ben-Davis-style one from 3sixteen are camp-shirt-adjacent, too, if you’re looking to taper off your dosage.

My man, you’re thinking, your big replacement for camp shirts is the button-up shirt? That’s all?

No, it’s just the easiest swap. The cleanest. I’ve also worn an Emily Dawn Long linen knit polo (similar to this Drake’s one) so often that I was forced to decode its care tag; this Linen Popover Shirt from Todd Snyder would scratch the same “relaxed, but not lazy” itch.

If I want to stick with something I can toss in the drier, an old piqué polo of mine (from Needles, with a funky lil collar like this one’s) subs in easily. This Kapital polo will do everything mine does, and more. The classic Lacoste polo never misses. (And my colleague vouches pretty heartily for J.Crew’s piqué polo, if you’re impatient enough to hit the mall.)

And finally, despite some serious third-rail potential, I’ve started dabbling again in point collar short-sleeve shirts—the kind issued to science teachers and actors playing 1950s dads. It’s best to stick with the classics here: stripes, Oxfords, chambrays. Maybe a madras-y plaid.

Am I saying that you should toss your camp collar shirts into a big bonfire and forsake your default summer shirt? No. (The air quality index across the country is bad enough.) But if, like me, you’re bored by all those floppy lapels and funky patterns, consider this your wake-up call: camp’s closing down, but there’s plenty of summer left for good shirts.