I’d rather wear them than try to figure out “business casual.”
I had no idea so many had such strong opinions about these shirts. I have about 4 or 5 now and used to have many more. My wife doesn’t like them, but I just thought it was because she was weird.
Oh well, I like them and will likely wear them until they fall apart, or the wife tosses them out.
Meh. I have a couple of black polo shirts from Banana Republic that I bought in the mid 90s. They actually still look pretty good - open collar, no buttons, nice texture. Like everything - it depends on the details.
Golf shirts, as we call them here, are completely fashionable and I personally own about 20 of them. What’s the casual alternative: a t-shirt?
I have a bunch of them, mostly left over from college. As a 30-something year old guy who spends most of his time in and around NYC, I find I have almost no use for them. Actually, that’s not completely true. They are fairly common in Hoboken, NJ where I live.
It’s a look I like to call “Upper Middle Class High School Jock / Fraternity Guy Preppy Casual”. It’s for when you are about age 25 or under and want to get a little more dressed up (you know, for that Friday kegger) than your usual wardrobe of jeans/cargo shorts, a baseball hat and your Dave Mathews Band or whatever T-shirt. So you throw on a polo shirt over your Dave Mathews Band or whatever T-shirt. Of course in your 30s, you just look like a guy who said “fuck it, I don’t know how to dress anymore so I’ll just throw on a fashion-neutral polo shirt.”
Of course actual “business casual” (or as my buddy calls it “Accenture Casual Friday”) is much worse. This consists of black pants, a blue collared shirt and usually your laptop bag on your shoulder with your Blackberry possibly on a belt holster.
This is what leads most guys to go home and change into the “going out shirt”. This is usually some garish brightly colored or patterned shirt that is completely inappropriate for the workplace.
My entire wardrobe is pretty much polo shirts.
I have a half dozen real shirts for when I need to wear a tie.
I have Polo shirts that are 20 years old. What changes? The color of the shirt and the pony logo? Ok, now you can get them with a 6" tall logo which looks ridiculous, but unless you wear them out they should stay stylistically neutral for centuries.
I don’t get the hate for them. Actually I can understand why people dont like them - they can easily be worn really badly. But so can anything else. What I dont get is this notion that they’re squeezed out by t-shirts and ‘dress shirts’. There can only be two types of shirts? For that matter, even with polos - there’s only three types?
For what it’s worth, I think a lot of men look awful in t-shirts and virtually nobody wears ‘dress shirts’ that actually fit well.
If I could iron a natural-fiber woven shirt in the same time as I can fold a knit shirt, I’d be right with the OP. (that is, looking like a stiff in the conference room while everyone else is in a polo)
As it is, I try to avoid shirts with logos (although that’s the price one pays for free shirts), or golf shirt patterns with contrasting collar and sleeve hems, aka “Tony Soprano shirts.”
The alternative are Charlie Harper/Cosmo Kramer synthetic Ban-Lons & knock-offs, which look good for two washings and look Goodwill thereafter, and scream “douche-bag” louder than a breast logo on a polo shirt of Douche-Bag University’s escutcheon.
an underutilized option is the tight-pattern with muted tones businessman’s Aloha wear, (worn tucked in!) which are not at all like the loud shirts mainlanders understand as the typical “Hawaiian shirt.”
“So many” don’t have strong opinions about a very, very common piece of clothing. If a list of the very worst online communities on which to receive fashion advice existed, this place would come in second or third behind a couple of hard-core gaming boards.
Don’t bat an eyelash the next time you pull one out of your closet.
Four - shirts also come in Hawaiian. (My boyfriend wears either “wrinkled giant tacky Hawaiian shirt” or “three piece suit with hat”. That is a man who knows no middle ground.)
Ditto. It’s basically a T-shirt with a fancy collar that is acceptable in most workplaces – unless you have to wear a tie. Wearing a button down shirt and a tie – THAT is what sucks.
You hate too much.
I’m an engineer and a chemist. I work in a lab and a factory.
Polo shirts are perfect work attire for me. They’re comfortable. They’re not too casual for work. I can work in them. They go fine on a golf course, as well.
Plus, at least twice I year I get splashed with some horrible chemical. My clothes are always ruined. I don’t feel too bad when it’s just a $20 cheapo polo shirt from Target.
Sure, I wouldn’t wear one to a wedding. But for the strange hybrid between “professional” and “your work may ruin your clothes on any day”, they are a great staple of my wardrobe.
I find this bizarre. Polo shirts are the de facto casual wear once you outgrow your Female Boobie Inspector t-shirt. For example, all the guys in this page that are wearing T-shirts look like they are wearing colored undershirts. If you move onto graphic Ts you end up having to choose some random words or logos, or heaven forbid an affliction t-shirt. And lets be honest, t-shirts look like ass on anyone that is fat or doesn’t have a broad shoulder/chest profile. A polo shirt has more stiffness/body that hides the fat and gives definition to a body. Plus, you have the ability to add in a color/contrast by selecting an appropriate undershirt.
What exactly does the OP recommend that a professional that occassionally has to go through a lab or plant wear? Dress shirts are impractical and quickly will get dirty. T-shirts aren’t nearly formal enough. The only thing to fill this gap is a polo shirt.
The idea is, if you are not wearing whatever faux-hipster new style they think is cool and they are wearing- you are a tool. 10 years ago, wearing a bowling shirt was super-uber-square and “toolish”. Now it’s cool. So is wearing your jeans around your ankles. :rolleyes:
Right now, the faux hipster crowd is down on polos, and a lot of other comfortable not bad looking things. OTOH, they think wearing fucking shower-shoes/flip flops to a wedding or a job interview is too cool for words.:rolleyes:
I’d rather be a tool, thank you.
Labrador Deceiver= nice post. 
I’m retired so I don’t have to worry about what my employer considers proper office wear. I wear polo shirts because they’re comfortable and I don’t have to worry about the buttons trying to hold them over my pot belly popping off. I couldn’t give a shit what is or is not considered fashionable; I dress to please myself.
The fact is, the average guy has four choices for everyday casual wear shirts: T-shirts, polo shirts, button up short sleeve shirts, and long sleeve button up shirts. That is it. We don’t have a lot of choices.
as for the OP:
Polo shirts are too fancy to be casual and too casual to be fancy- What does this have to do with most guys? If we are in our front yard, at the store, or the thousands of other places we can be in a give day, neither too casual or too fancy apply. It is just a shirt.
Depending on your age, build and whatnot, they make you look like some combination of a preppy frat jock named Chip, a gay dude (also possibly named Chip), a middle-aged soccer dad (Chip Sr.) or a Best Buy employee (Hello my name is Chip) In the past 30 years, almost every guy of every age has owned a polo. Old men, gangsters, and geeks wear polos. They haven’t been frat boy exclusive territory since the 80’s (they don’t call frat boys “Chip” anymore either.)
You can’t wear them to a job interview- Your right, but for a guy other than a suit or a nice dress shirt, what is?
They are generally too casual for any work environment where people wear dress pants- maybe, but not always. Again, how many different kinds of shirts can you wear with dress pants anyway?
*They look nerdy tucked in and sloppy when untucked- *I don’t agree, but OK.
*If you are wearing them casually with jeans or shorts you might as well wear a collarless t-shirt- *I don’t follow your logic. Why should a guy knock out 1 out of his 4 shirt choices for no reason? In most cases, any four of the 4 shirt choices would be cool.
If you need to get dressed up you might as well wear a long-sleeve dress shirt- I agree in most cases.
The extra large logos which appear to be the style just make you look like an extra large douche- Yes, the younger guys are wearing those, but as I have said in other posts, I support a young man’s right to look fashionable, even if it is silly to my old eyes, because I did the same thing when I was a young man.
They only ever really seem to look good on the 6’2" super thin catalog model out on some golf course in the Hamptons where the photo shoot took place. Golf course? Hamptons? You do have a 1983 view of polos don’t ya? Just about every store from Walmart to A&F sells polos to guys of every age.
Bottom line, I am a proud polo wearer, and I’ve gotten laid a lot while wearing them, and in the end, isn’t that all that really matters in this crazy world?
I had to find a shirt that my company would grudgingly allow me to wear that didnt tuck in [fat broad + tucked in shirt = stuffed sausage look. Not good.]
I took to wearing a guayabera because they couldnt make me tuck it in [and it has 4 pockets!]
When freshly starched/pressed in a natty red, with black pants and shoes, very spiffy.
Hate them. Always have. Hated them in high school when they became our official school uniform, hate them now that they are my official work uniform. Hate them on me, hate them on everyone else.