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They might look like denim, but the best men’s chambray shirts—those lightly dyed, usually blue, heirloom-soft button-ups—are actually made of a completely different fabric. Chambray, in fact, is a fabric that has transfixed generations of menswear nerds, for good reason: It’s breathable yet substantial, soft but not floppy, rugged but pulled-together. And yet somehow, it still flies relatively under the radar. You might not even have any in your closet. I’m here to change that.
If you’re curious, chambray shirts feel like that because they’re typically constructed from two different colors of thread. The ones that run vertically (the warp) are indigo-dyed, like jeans. But the ones that run horizontally (the weft) are white, which gives chambray fabric its trademark texture, and the kind of visual depth you’ll also see on a heathered sweatshirt.
And not to keep harking back to denim, but the best men’s chambray shirts also share all the characteristics that have made their denim counterparts iconic: they fade beautifully, they can pass as actual workwear, they feel good on your skin, and they’re flattering on pretty much everyone. All you have to do is choose a well-made one, which is why I called in a bunch to help you do exactly that.
The Best Chambray Shirts, According to GQ
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Best Chambray Shirt Overall: Buck Mason Japanese Chambray Service Shirt
Despite being best known for its sturdy, well-fitting T-shirts, Buck Mason also produces a lot of great pants, jackets, and button-ups. Its Chambray Service shirt was modeled after a vintage piece belonging to the designer, which was issued to US Navy crew members in the 1960s. Trying it on, I realized immediately that it lacks all of the “character building” stiffness associated with other denim—instead, the shirt is light as a feather, constructed of 5 oz. fabric, and smooth to the touch. What’s more, its barely-there blue color helps make the few extra details—including the fisheye buttons and flap pockets, really stand out. It’s a shirt that goes with anything, which is great, because I never want to take it off.
Best Budget Chambray Shirt: Levi’s Relaxed Fit Western Shirt
Levi’s is still, at its core, a denim brand, but the company has also been producing light blue chambray shirts since 1913. The offerings have expanded and contracted over the years—apparently chambray playsuits and rompers were once quite popular—but the company has always sold some version of a light blue button-up. It’s no surprise then that the Western-inspired chambray shirt it currently sells is confidently simple. The fit is relaxed, and bereft of distracting details. Sure, the buttons could be fancier, but when you’re working off a blueprint you’ve developed for over a century, the worst thing you could do is overthink it.
Best Patterned Chambray Shirt: Heimat Chambray Work Shirt
While you’ll find chambray in all-manner of non-blue colors—J. Crew long produced a popular red chambray shirt, for example—and occasionally find some vintage options with tasteful embroidery or patches attached, you don’t often see the plaid, gingham or otherwise printed shirts made of the fabric. So it’s a gift that the German label Heimat makes not only a pretty spectacular classic blue chambray shirt, with two bang-on flap pockets and an unstructured point color, but also offers the same in an ink/seashell patterned colorway that felt even more special in my hands. Almost like it saw the understated heathered texture of classic chambray, and said “Hold my beer.”
Best Chambray Shirt for the Office: Sid Mashburn Cotton-Chambray Western Shirt
You might not expect the Atlanta-based tailoring wizards at Sid Mashburn to produce a chambray shirt at all, let alone one that so perfectly captures the association the material has with the western U.S. and its cattle ranch culture. But chambray fabric is actually all over the Mashburn catalog, from dress shirts intended to be worn with suits to casual short-sleeved shirts styled with printed shorts. Among all of these, however, our favorite is the brand’s dressed-up Western shirt, which is heavy on the kind of heritage that makes thrift-store crate diggers swoon. These include: mother-of-pearl buttons, pointed yokes at the shoulders, and a triple snap cuff. Two-gallon hat sold separately.
Best Vintage-Like Chambray Shirt: Orslow Cotton-Chambray Shirt
Orslow was founded in 2005 by Ichiro Nakatsu. His goal, he has since said, was to replicate some of the legendary vintage American denim and workwear he’d collected over the years, for a fresh customer base to enjoy. Most of the products the company sells do indeed look stripped straight out of Life Magazine spreads of military men and factory workers, including its cotton-chambray shirt, but the quality is undeniably Orslow’s own. The front pockets are large, as you’d expect, but have a chicly curved flap. The color is light, but a bit more saturated than the other options. The result is a shirt you won’t just be able to pass down to generations, but that your child is likely to steal from you as soon as they’re old enough to recognize your swag.
More Chambray Shirts We Love
RRL Indigo Chambray Workshirt
Kapital Embroidered Cotton-Chambray Shirt
Man-tle R17S1 Mineral Wax Shirt
Todd Snyder Japanese Chambray Work Shirt
How To Style A Chambray Shirt
Because it’s more casual in nature, a chambray shirt can be worn with most of the outfits you’re probably already rocking every day—they look as great paired with deeply dyed jeans (a masterful take on the Canadian Tuxedo) as they do with infinitely pleated Issey Miyake trousers, or over a t-shirt and some chinos. But don’t sleep on the chambray shirt’s ability to play in the big leagues, too: With the right collar and pocket, you can even wear a chambray shirt with a suit and tie.
Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.
Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.
We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.
To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.
We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.
Across the majority of our buying guides, our team boasts firsthand experience with the bulk of our selects, but a handful are totally new to us. So after several months of intense debate, we tally the votes, collate the anecdotal evidence, and emerge with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best of the category right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable beaters to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs.
Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there’s bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ’s testing process here.)
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