The Best Shirts Don’t Have Buttons

Effortlessness is next to godliness. The coolest people on the planet look that way because they don't try to look cool, they just are. Or, if they do try, they don't look like they do. Swag is grace made manifest and if you dress sweaty, you look sweaty.

One of the secrets to great style is smoothly integrating seemingly advanced garments into one's regular rotation. That doesn't mean tossing on statement pieces every other day, but leaning into items a little off the beaten trail and balancing staples with newness.

One such cheat code to cool is the buttonless pullover shirt. Sounds simple until you realize that this isn't merely a polo but a complete closure-free layering piece. This is a challenge for the well-dressed, but one that promises inherent steeze to anyone able to pull it off.

And it's really not that hard. The key is to simply find a cool example and dial in the fit. Dare to deep-V or stay in the shallow end of the pool with something simpler. It's just that simple and just that cool.

The beauty of the buttonless shirt is that it connotes a sense of ease akin to a tunic. Its wearer is comfortable enough with their own taste to free themselves from the constraints of buttons, straps, snaps, and ties. It is ease exemplified and it is guaranteed to make you look — and feel — cooler.

I really like Maison Margiela's taped polo, which shrouds the buttons in a translucent coating, and this clever quarter-zip from industrial workwear label Working, which tweak the notion of what a shirt can, or should be. These are garments with personality and they confer that 'tude to the wearer daring enough to pull them on.

In Japan, this style of shirt is called the "skipper" shirt, presumably named for the breezy layers preferred by sailors back in the day. And you'll find a million brands offering a strong take on the style, ranging from Blurhms' half-sleeve skipper sweater to Comoli's most advanced shirts, which straddle the line of approachability with open chests and long torsos.

Not every skipper need be a struggle. Kaptain Sunshine recently revised the inimitable Lacoste polo into a pretty much perfect summertime pullover, boxier than the average Lacoste shirt but preppy in pique cotton (amped up by that Lacoste Croc). It's good, wearable stuff, normal but better.

That's the beauty of the skipper shirt at its best. Even when more progressive labels, like barbell object and the deconstructionist geniuses at Ancellm, tackle the style, they typically end up with classic-looking shirts that're nevertheless rendered mildly transcendent by their lack of adjustability.

What can I say? It's innately cool to not merely restrict yourself but overcome self-imposed stylistic framing, bending what initially appears to be a downgrade into a sentiment of grace so strong that it renders fastenings redundant.

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