No shirt is more ubiquitous in men’s closets today than the polo shirt.
And with good reason. It’s the shirt you throw on when you want to wear more than a T-shirt but less than a button-up: a middle-ground that’s a safe bet for most occasions in this post-business-casual world. Which is why it’s a daily go-to for millions of men.
The 100% pique knit cotton polo, by contrast, only looks better with age. When the placket shows wear and tear, it feels welcoming.
But not all polo shirts are created equal. Some are hardier than others. Some wear better than others. Some last longer than others. Some look more classic than others. Simply put, some are better than others.
Tragically, the most commonly found polo shirts are some of the worst polo shirts. They are the polo shirts that should be cast into a great volcano on some distant tropical island. They are the polo shirts that don’t even deserve to be a rag in your garage. They are the polo shirts that look like the uniform for a low-level data analyst at a nuclear waste treatment facility in the distant future.
They are the sleek, shiny, polyester monstrosities known as “performance” or “Dri-FIT” polos.
Polo shirts can be unflattering. They can be unforgiving. Even the nicest ones can be tough to wear. The way they are constructed and the general thinness of the fabric tend to reveal any imperfections in one’s physique. If you are carrying any extra weight around, a polo shirt is going to throw it in your face.
If you ever wonder why you never look that good in a polo, this is the answer.
You aren’t alone. And if all this is true with the nicest polos — 100% thick pique cotton knit polos — it is all the more true with their garishly colored petroleum-based counterparts. The main way these garments “perform” is by reliably making you look much worse than you need to.
They do this by being utterly redundant. A “sporty” version of the polo shirt? The polo shirt has always been sporty — it was “athleisure” a century before the category existed.
The polo shirt was originally meant for tennis. French champion René Lacoste created it in 1926 as a more comfortable alternative to the long-sleeved white button-ups men usually wore on the court.
Short sleeves. Pique knit cotton. An unstructured, flat collar. Hard to improve on that. And for years, nobody tried. Until our scientific hubris got the best of us. What if we made these out of plastic? And in colors undreamed of in nature? We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, we didn’t stop to think if we should.
But these polos are “moisture wicking,” they’ll tell you. Nonsense. The claim that moisture-wicking is desperately needed for comfort during normal daily life is a delusion. If it’s so hot that a pique cotton knit polo isn’t cool enough for your daily life, then a short-sleeve linen button-up is in order. Nothing is cooler. Nothing is more classic.
The synthetic Dri-FIT polo, like all synthetic things, ages terribly. With every bit of wear, the shirt looks worse. There is no expectation that the shirt will be broken in one day. There is no repairing or mending that will ever be done. The synthetic polo is meant to be tossed the day that it starts showing any kind of wear and tear.
The 100% pique knit cotton polo, by contrast, only looks better with age. When the placket shows wear and tear, it feels welcoming. The more broken in, the more comfortable it becomes. The nick on the collar feels like a worn handrail. The fabric is subdued and quiet. The thickness of the knit is forgiving.
A synthetic polo leads you down a path of disposability. It looks best with disposable pants and disposable shoes. A 100% cotton polo looks best with 100% cotton khaki chinos and a pair of leather boat shoes. Natural begets natural. Natural complements natural.
You deserve a better polo shirt. You deserve a 100% cotton pique knit polo. Row the boat out to the island, climb the ancient steps, look down into the crevasse, and throw your moisture-wicking polo into the volcano and never look back.
