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There’s something about the oppressive heat of high summer that activates our horniest impulses. This year, with the East Coast experiencing near-record high temperatures, people seem particularly feral, and their fashion choices are reflecting this—especially among men. Speedos are trending, with designers like Bode and Wales Bonner co-signing the revealing swim brief. While it was once taboo for a man to show some toe, flip-flops are the season’s hottest shoe, with status pairs now available from The Row and ERL. (The former will cost you $690, and the latter came complete with a steamy campaign shoot, featuring a cast of tanned, fully naked models.)
Red carpets have felt more suggestive, too: Think Pedro Pascal’s biceps on full display in a sleeveless Calvin Klein shirt, or Alexander Skarsgård’s skin-tight Loewe leather trousers at Cannes. Culture is captivated by the myriad ways men are showing skin, both on and offline. Take a scroll through your TikTok or X feed and you’ll find that declaring “the sluttiest thing a man can wear” has become the meme format du jour. Responses range from sincere (a fitted white T-shirt) to silly (a 35mm camera), but the spirit remains the same: We’re all looking, respectfully. But from a sartorial perspective, are any of the answers more correct than others?
According to designer and creative director Aaron Levine, there are certain pieces that fall into the classically slutty category. “There’s a top component and a bottom component, but the bottom component is excessively sluttier,” he says. “I think wearing a little running short—a three-inch, four-inch running short—with the mesh [lining] is pretty slutty. Showing a lot of leg. You wear those with a pair of jellies, they elongate the leg even more. I pair that normally with an Oxford shirt. You have two buttons done on it, and you’re just summering.”
There’s an ease to an oversized button-down shirt that makes it timelessly tantalizing. “It can be intentional, but it’s not try-hard,” says stylist Ian Bradley. “If the shirt’s really tight, it gives Night at the Roxbury. But a loose-fitting shirt, with one button [done up], especially at the height of summer, feels more sensual than slutty.” Though he thinks that short-shorts were once slutty in a fun, unexpected way—circa 1982 when Harrison Ford wore them with loafers at The Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc—they’re obvious at this point. Bradley says that for him, the mid-thigh always hits. “Five inches and higher is still a slutty classic.”
For both Levine and Bradley, true sluttiness is not premeditated. Sometimes it’s simply the result of choosing the most practical clothing for the heat. “I don’t purchase clothing with the intention of being slutty. I love the function of a running short: it’s light and I don’t have to wear underwear with it,” Levine explains. “I wear a short swim trunk because, why do you want all of that wet fabric clinging to you? I don’t wear T-shirts at the beach, I wear button-ups, undone. They feel good against sunburned skin when they’re old and soft. It’s a function thing.”
It’s slutty “when guys cut the sides of their T-shirts really low, so you can see their obliques, but that seems like a specifically gay thing,” Bradley says, pointing to a handful of looks from the Balenciaga fall 2025 show as examples. “A board short, worn really low—that is truly slutty. I love surfer cosplay.”
Cropped tees also used to fall into this category, but due to their popularity among Gen Z and wide availability on the market—especially from fast fashion brands—some of the original magic has been lost. “They’re just cropped enough where, when a guy puts his arms above his head or something, it’s the sluttiest move of all time,” Bradley says. “That is sensual to me, a little peekaboo. I think it’s gotten slutty. It used to be sensual. A lot of guys are exploiting that once rarity of the perfect T-shirt that hits the waistband just so. Now it’s very TikTok, IG hot boy.”
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