Wearing the wrong shirt in summer is a lot worse than wearing the wrong shirt in winter. When it’s cold, chances are your button-up will be safely nestled under at least one other layer. A summer shirt, however, is often the main event. They tend to be louder, more colourful, more revealing and much harder to style.

Don’t worry. You’ll pick the perfect shirt for summer thanks to the comprehensive edit we’ve compiled below. From high street to designer and across every style that matters, this is every type of shirt you’ll need until your tan wears off and the leaves turn brown.

Striped Shirts

Some clothes have the quasi-magical ability to alter your appearance and vertical stripe shirts are among them. The lines on this style draw the eye up and down, making you look taller and slimmer – useful, if your summer body workout hasn’t exactly delivered the Zac Efron torso you ordered.

Summer stripes exist on a spectrum. The narrowest banker stripes remain pretty formal, while slightly wider bengal stripes give you easy Riviera vibes, especially on a crinkled linen shirt. Wider still, deckchair stripes can help to broaden the shoulders and alternating stripes let you lean into the 50s trend.

– Ian Taylor, editor-in-chief

Hawaiian & Japanese Print Shirts

Grandpa Simpson said it best, “I used to be with it. Then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’.”

While we can’t be certain the octogenarian cartoon character was discussing the vagaries of men’s fashion, it’s a sentiment that certainly applies to the Hawaiian shirt. Also known as an Aloha shirt (although Japanese prints are just as detailed and interesting), the style dates back to the 1930s, and has bounced between being cool and hideous for decades.

To stay on right side of history (think Al Pacino in Scarface, Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet, even Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura), the rules of styling are same as wearing any kind of bold print. Balance out a busy top half and keep the shirt as the focal point by picking out a dark, neutral colour within the print for your lower limbs. From there you can simple keep palm and carry on.