A young person wears a layered shirt with blue and white stripes, featuring a large collar and buttons visible down the front.

Wardrobe Wisdom: Restyle6 fresh ways to style your button-up shirt

One of the most commonplace wardrobe staples, we take a look at 6 styling hacks to get the most out of your shirts when buttoned-up isn’t cutting it anymore.

By Lucas Pantoja

19 December 2024 · 3 min read

We’ve all been there before, getting dressed for the day ahead and staring at our wardrobe full of clothes with the feeling as though we’ve got nothing to wear. For some of us, this is occasional. For others, it’s a weekly or daily occurrence. But what if the problem wasn’t in our lack of clothing and rather a lack of creativity? Shoes, pants, shirts, outerwear, and accessories all feel limiting when we think of them solely in terms of how they’re “supposed” to be styled.

When thinking of the most memorable fashion moments, clothes were worn in the most unexpected ways. Think Fred Astaire using a necktie as a belt, Princess Diana tucking sweatpants into cowboy boots, rappers popping the collars of their polo shirts in the 2000s, and so on. Our clothes only feel stale when we have a one-dimensional view of how to wear them, and no garment proves that better than the classic button-up shirt. A business attire staple, what happens when you free it from the dress codes that bind it? Your wardrobe will feel as though it’s expanded, without ever actually adding any new additions, and saving you from any regrettable purchases. Keep reading, as we run-through 6 wildly inventive ways to master the art of shirt wearing and get the most wear out of your tops.

Off-shoulder, on-style

One shirt is all it takes to leave you feeling new. One wrinkled, creased and incorrectly buttoned shirt. Most fashion aficionados and Wall Street types will swear by a perfectly pressed dress shirt. Crisp, clean, proper and traditional. But true style is all about knowing when and how to break the rules — like the punks clothes pinning their tops and rappers opting for baggy jeans. This kind of buttoning is blasphemous to a shirt traditionalist and so perfectly wrong, that it looks just right.

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Opposites attract

Simple and effective — this trick pulls inspo from designer Dries Van Noten’s AW24 show where shirts were worn backwards. When the back of a shirt looks as exceptional as this one by BITE STUDIOS, you’ll have people questioning whether this was how it was intended to be worn all along.

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3 times the charm

Ah, the Matryoska doll of shirt styling; peel back a layer of stripes only to reveal another one. Remember that feeling as a kid, playing dress up with your parents’ clothes in the most innocent, playful manner? That’s what you’re tapping into here — pure joy. Just layer whatever old shirts you can dig up, and like a chef experimenting in the kitchen, don’t write off a combination until trying it.

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Two-faced

Of course, two shirts that form a great bottom also make for a wonderful singular top. And who needs to purchase a brand-new two-toned shirt when you can create your own, no sewing involved? Properly wrap the sleeve around the waist for +100 styling points.

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The shirt-skirt

Who knew that, when combined, white collar dress shirts make for a splendid skirt? This DIY-hack is actually as simple as it looks. Take two shirts of the same length and button them down the middle so that both sleeves and collar tips meet. Try spinning it around after buttoning one side and tie a belt under the collars if need be.

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Perfect asymmetry

Here it is, this is real shirt-origami. It’s essentially a combination of where we began with one shirt buttoned asymmetrically and our previous hack of two-shirts wrapped together. And look, the sleeve still wraps over perfectly like a belt. When wearing two used and forgotten button downs, one might even confuse this styling trick as a work of upcycling, given the transformative outcome.