8 stylish shirts for work to add personality to your office wardrobe
I love shirts—browsing for them online, buying them and wearing them. I own at least 40 tops in my wardrobe, 32 out of which are shirts or shirt-adjacent designs. Most of them belong to me and a few I have borrowed (read: stolen) from my father and husband’s wardrobes. Years of weight-lifting and swimming have grown my shoulders broad enough to dip into men’s cupboards which, combined with my preference for wearing oversized clothes, works out perfectly.
But of late, I have been thinking about a shirt’s design. No, there is nothing wrong with how it is made. Everyone knows that the allure of a well-constructed (and this is key) shirt is hard to beat. It is said that brands like Rajesh Pratap Singh and The Row have spent three years perfecting its design. Very few experiences come close to the joy of buttoning up a crisp white poplin shirt over a pair of dark blue denim pants. But, because a shirt is such a wardrobe staple that has not been messed with, it has also become somewhat boring.
As someone who only wears shirts to work—over my straight-leg denim pants, pleated trousers, denim culottes—I have to constantly rely on other parts of the look to carry it across the state lines from ‘safe’ and into the ‘stylish’ territory. Which has led me down a rabbit hole to discover homegrown brands that have quietly been rejigging a shirt’s design to make it less predictable. And yes while they still make shirts the way Lord intended them to be stitched, they feature fun elements that will shake things out of predictability, especially shirts for work. Because there’s nothing worse than wearing a boring outfit on a dull day.
On that note, here are some recommendations for shirts for work from a shirt fiend to shake things up in your work wardrobe.
This angrakha-style asymmetric shirt is a must-have when it comes to off-beat shirts for work. Crafted from pure cotton, it features unfinished edges and floral appliqués with a tie-up detail in the front. Wear it with horseshoe or barrel-shaped raw denim pants.
