My friend Priya asked the question that started it all whilst we were stood in the queue at the coffee van outside her office. “Plain white t- shirt is a cop- out. It’s what you wear when you’ve given up.” I laughed, because I thought she was joking. Then I realised she absolutely wasn’t. And forty minutes later we were still going. Stood there with cold flat whites, holding up a man who just wanted an oat milk latte and no part of our intellectual debate.
“I mean,” she said. “A plain white t- shirt is what you wear when you can’t be arsed getting dressed.” It’s been workout gear since WFH started. Let’s face it, the gym isn’t going anywhere just yet.) Everyone owns one for that reason alone.
Her point, roughly, was this. A plain white t-shirt is lazy. It’s the laziest thing you can wear.
She kept saying this as though it were objective fact. As though the words “white” and “shirt” tumbled out of her mouth and assembled themselves into an item of clothing that everyone in the whole world agreed was designed specifically for sloths. I got mad. Proper angry. Not because she was wrong (she was, very much not wrong) but because I know she’d never owned a good plain white t-shirt. Not one. Her entire argument was rooted in never having experienced a white shirt that both looked and felt like it fitted its name. Smug takeaway coffee fuelled anger is a hell of a drug.
Here’s the part that no one tells you until you find yourself having it, each and every single time: whenever this comes up, it’s never actually about the shirt. It’s about what people assume “trying” looks like. Priya assumes that trying requires bright colours, patterns, maybe a statement sleeve or embroidery or something you can point to and say “look, I put effort into this specifically.” My idea of trying involves a t-shirt that actually fits the shape of my shoulders instead of assuming I’m two sets of horizontal rectangles, that hasn’t faded in the wash, that I consciously chose to wear with this because it goes with this. Effort expended equals looks completely different. She couldn’t see my effort because it didn’t come with bells on.
If plain white t-shirts had an SAT score for effort accusation, it’d be through the roof.
Look, I want to unpack this fully, because as much as Priya tried throughout that whole altercation outside Pret (because Pret now, obviously), I think lazy” about clothes that people just accept as truth without stress testing it. Lean in close, people. I am about to drop some serious t-shirt knowledge on you. You repeat this stuff to your friends at dinner parties over glasses of crisp white wine that cost £7, weep.
Priya and the team over there at “casual” vs “smart.”
You get one plain white t-shirt, then. It’s right here. The £4 one from a multipack you clutch onto with dear life when you realise you left your “normal” washing at home and have to work next day. The one that’s see through in bright light. The one that yellows at the collar after three washes because mate, the person who made that cotton blend loved using chemicals more than their boss did. That shirt. That shirt is lazy. I own about twelve of them from my twenties, thanks to constantly replacing the older ones as they died with none of the others I owned, because white shirts didn’t just jump straight into thatough your entire life without stopping to consider why you keep replacing the same damn item in a cycle of disappointment instead of finding one that fits like it was meant to be there?
Now we get to the good stuff. The one that’s 100% cotton, feels heavier in your hands than that sorry excuse you swore you didn’t own, fits your actual shape rather than pretending you’ve got no body at all. Doesn’t yellow at the seams, because it didn’t cheap out on the fabric to begin with. Fits pleasantly at your shoulder rather than dragging halfway down your arm as if it too has given up trying to live its best life. That t-shirt right there. That t-shirt is not lazy. It took someone, somewhere. Whether that’s you doing your research or an incredible designer at one of the many great shirt companies putting thought into cuts, to decide what proportion feels good and what darts to add where. Everything Priya was accusing me of with that stupid white shirt exists in that cheap ass shirt she was wearing. They are not the same. Accusing a plain white shirt of being “lazy” is lazy.
My colleague Denise summed me up perfectly when I explained our whatsapp thread about this to her later that morning over a Pret coffee at my desk. “Bad plain t-shirt looks like you didn’t try,” she said. “Good one looks like you didn’t have to.” It’s the whole damn argument. I should’ve quoted her at Priya. Problem is, Priya probably would’ve had a comeback for that.
Also something that I feel like people skip over whenever this argument comes up is the job the shirt is actually doing in an outfit. Nobody pulls a plain white shirt out and put it on by itself. It’s meant to be worn with something else. Something tailoring. Something structural. The shirt, good or bad, is what lets whatever you actually spent time on do its job without fighting for attention. It’s the canvas you’re literally painting the rest of your outfit around. Throw rocks at it for being plain and you might as well critique an artists frame for not being the masterpiece inside it.
FYI I know this for a fact. The wedding that changed my perspective about my own privilege.
Full disclosure before we go any further: I used to kind of think like Priya did before I had my own perspective revelation about it. There was a wedding in 2019, my cousin Fenella’s wedding (hi Fen, if you ever read this) that I attended in….wait for it…..a plain white t-shirt. Knew her dad would, so under a linen jacket. Because….WHITE T SHIRT? ELEVATED CASUAL? WHO WOULD EVER THOUGHT TO WEAR SUIT AND TIE TO A GODDAM WEDDING?? ?
Lesson learned there, which was the entire point of me bringing it up. I wore that shirt out of confidence I had earned ZERO RIGHT TO HAVE. Everyone else wore something nice. Wedding. In April. I showed up in a shirt. MY AUNT ROSALIND SAID TO ME AT THE WEDDING “DID YOU GET CHANGED ON THE WAY OVER?” Fuck my life. If a shirt had legs I would’ve triple tucked that shit and never looked back.
So no, I’m not saying that anytime, anywhere, you can chuck on a plain white shirt and it’s fine. Unless you’ve done the work of figuring out what separates a cheap and sad-looking shirt from a nice one, you’re just as bad as the guys ectricating them for no reason. I was like that, once. But at least I own up to my past mistakes.
But I also will fight someone tooth and nail about a t-shirt that fits right, because when done correctly it isn’t lazy at all. It’s the easiest thing in the world to wear and looks INCREDIBLE under the right pieces.
Care to find out what separates a “good” shirt from a “bad” one? Because guess what? There is such thing. We’re diving into scams, folks.
First up? Fabric matters. If your shirt moves as you move, it’s probably too light. Like, I can see your underwear through it light. It also flaps around in the wind like a flag and doesn’t hold its shape, which is basically the universal sign for lazy no matter what you’re wearing it with. Pick up a potential shirt and see how it feels when you let it go. Does it stay somewhat formed, or does it flop over your hand like someone told it to take a fucking break? I learned this lesson with one too many embarrassingly see through shirts from JOE INCENTIVES whose model was disproportionately tiny and preferred her shirts super duper fitted. Fit into both criteria. They looked horrendous no matter what I did with them, which I only realised on bloody warm commutes where my bra was suddenly this shirt’s arch nemesis. Fun times.
Speaking of fit…
We’ll Priya was actually right about this one without realising it. If your shirt is too boxy, too ill fitting, yes it does give off that “I couldn’t be arsed picking out a real top today” vibe. But only because it’s loose on your body. It’s not saying “look how neutral I am!” out loud like the colour lacks does. Try it on. Does it cling where it should? Does it skim your body or float around you? Remember when we talked about shirts falling off your shoulders? Imagine that, but down your torso. Fits like that and you may as well wear it with holes cut out for your armpits, they barely look there.
One last one, because I feel like this is the hill white shirts die on more than anything.
It yellows.
Cheap cotton yellows. At the seams, underneath your arms, everywhere white shouldn’t be but Mum Natur suddenly thought was a good idea. Buy something that feels too thin when you hold it. It will discolour within months of you owning it. Ask my sister Aggie. She still owns a white shirt from ~2016 that is now the colour of weak tea around the collar and is proud of it. FUCK THAT SHIRT AGGIE.
Anyway. All these things are white shirt hilltops I died on with Priya. And….neither of them matter if you actually know what you’re looking for in a shirt. They’re universally applied things we look for in any garment we’re thinking about buying. Would I buy a cheap, ill fitting, yellowing blue shirt? FUCK NO I WOULDNT. We don’t attack all blue shirts for having that one blue shirt, we call that shirt shit. White shirts are held to higher standards because they come in so MANY DIFFERENT SHADES OF WHITE that people forget there’s actual though and skill that goes into creating one that fits like it was meant to be there. The same thought you’d put into any shirt.
Long story short, I eventually sent Priya a screenshot of just the shirt tucked under my blazer, wearing it as I would to an office meet up. Proper fitted, proper presented, properly wasn’t looking like ass and made her reconsider her life choices. She replied “fine” to my two hour Defending the White T-Shirt essay of a texts. “FINE” is Priya’s way of giving someone a sincere apology in text form. And I’m taking it as such.
Priya. It is ok to wear a plain white t shirt. As long as it fits right, yes. More than that actually. White shirts, when done right are fucking incredible. Don’t let someone ruin them for you. Just make sure you’re not wearing yours to my cousin’s wedding, alright? Alright.
