So to find the very best oxford shirts, we asked several fashion experts and other stylish men about the ones they’d recommend.īest overall | Best less-expensive | Best with stretch | Best (slightly-slim) patterned | Best for tall people | Best splurge-worthy | Best traditional | Best made-to-order They were always meant to be versatile and dependable, equally easy to wear with a tie in the city or untucked on a trip to the countryside, which is why they are still popular after more than 100 years of existence. There’s a reason that cultural icons from Miles Davis to Paul Newman have regularly been seen wearing them. The oxford shirt - also known as the OCBD, for oxford cloth button-down - is now almost as foundational to American fashion as blue jeans. John copied the style to start selling it at Brooks Brothers, and by 1915, it had become a staple among East Coast college kids, helping to birth the Ivy Style movement that influences fashion to this day. The idea was to prevent the collar from whacking players in the face while they sped around on horses. Brooks, the grandson of Brooks Brothers founder Henry Sands Brooks, saw Polo players in England wearing shirts with buttons that secured the collar. As Coggins puts it, “The oxford-cloth shirt endures because the shirt itself endures.”ĭerek Guy, editor at the men’s style website Put This On and blogger at Die, Workwear, says, “The oxford Shirt is perhaps the United States’ greatest sartorial contribution.” Guy explained that in 1896, John E. It’s not just that they’re a classic style - the best oxford shirts are also easy to care for, “meant to be rugged enough to be taken for granted, balled up and tossed in the wash, dried at whatever temperature, and worn with less of a press than crumpled nonchalance,” explains Chris Wallace, the U.S. “Nearly every man looks good in a white oxford,” says author David Coggins, an oxford-shirt devotee who also writes a men’s style newsletter called The Contender. Like worn-in jeans or the perfect T-shirt, a dependable white oxford shirt is a year-round closet staple.

Mens red and white button down shirt