The Mens Black Dress Shirt: Our Definitive Style & Buying Guide (2024)

Featured | Menswear | Shirts

Lloyd Hughes

The mens black dress shirt is a unique piece of menswear that (if worn cor­rect­ly) con­veys a rugged and mas­cu­line con­fi­dence. The man in black (aka John­ny Cash) owes his per­sona to this trade­mark look. There are plen­ty of ‘faux pas’ that you could make with the black dress shirt, which we’ll try to guide you on. The eas­i­est guid­ance we can offer is — KEEP IT SIMPLE.

The Mens Black Dress Shirt: Our Definitive Style & Buying Guide (2)

Do NOT wear a black dress shirt with oth­er dark­er tones

  • DO pair a black dress shirt with dark den­im. The mens black dress shirt was meant to be worn with jeans. It is a per­fect com­bi­na­tion and one the eas­i­est and sleek­est casu­al ensem­bles. You can also go tucked or untucked. For advise on the prop­er tucked shirt length, check out ourUntucked Shirt Length Guide.

Black Bam­boo / Cot­ton blend shirt w/ Dark Den­im

  • DO wear a black dress shirt with a dark blaz­er. It is a bold, clean look that you can use as a goto for any co*ck­tail hour event. Add a match­ing black tie for an even more for­mal look.

Black Blaz­er w/ Black Dress Shirt

  • DO NOT wear a black dress shirt with any­thing white. Where­as a white dress shirt goes per­fect with a black tie / sus­penders / suit / slacks, the same can­not be said for the oppo­site. A black dress shirt with a white tie is per­fect if you’re an under­world fig­ure from the 1920s. In any oth­er era, it will just draw stares — and not the good kind.

The Mens Black Dress Shirt: Our Definitive Style & Buying Guide (5)

Do NOT wear a black dress shirt with white acces­sories

  • DO wear a black dress shirt regard­less of your skin tone / hair col­or. A com­mon, short­sight­ed belief is that those with lighter skin / hair should not wear a black dress shirt as the con­trast is too “bold”. We whole­heart­ed­ly dis­agree. The mod­el shown in many of our pho­tos is obvi­ous­ly lighter skinned and has light brown hair. We think he looks fan­tas­tic. Don’t let a fool­ish and cul­tur­al­ly igno­rant opin­ion pre­vent you from wear­ing the look that you want to wear.

Metro Black Per­for­mance Stretch Shirt w/ an Ital­ian Spread Col­lar

The Formal Mens Black Dress Shirt

Metro Black Per­for­mance Dress Shirt

Fabric / Attributes:

  • Per­for­mance Stretch Poplin Fab­ric
  • Ital­ian Spread Col­lar
  • co*ck­tail Cuffs

This is one shirt every man should own. Our per­for­mance stretch will drape you ele­gant­ly but also give you just a small amount of stretch that will not only pro­vide ease but give you more of a fit­ted look that is not usu­al­ly achiev­able with a tra­di­tion­al fab­ric. The ele­gant Ital­ian Spread col­lar pairs per­fect­ly with this shirt and looks very dap­per under a blaz­er. Addi­tion­al­ly, we paired this shirt with spe­cial­ty co*ck­tail cuffs that give the shirt a much more unique appear­ance. As with all of the shirts here, we rec­om­mend either dry clean­ing or machine wash­ing on cold and then air dry­ing. NEVER machine dry. Dry­ers rob the shirts cot­ton of mois­ture which short­en their life.

Metro Black Per­for­mance Dress Shirt

Where to Buy It:

  • Deo Ver­i­tas — Metro Black Per­for­mance Shirt ($125)

The Casual, All Purpose Mens Black Dress Shirt

Black Bam­boo / Cot­ton Blend Dress Shirt

Fabric / Attributes:

  • 50% Bam­boo / 50% Cot­ton Poplin Weave
  • Eng­lish Spread Col­lar
  • 2 But­ton Square Cuffs

Our bam­boo / cot­ton blend is a unique fab­ric like no oth­er we offer. The bam­boo weave pro­vides ben­e­fits that you’re like­ly to only find on a dry fit / ath­let­ic shirt, i.e. mois­ture wick­ing, heat dis­si­pa­tion, and wrin­kle resis­tance. Though it can be worn for­mal­ly, we pre­fer it for more casu­al set­tings. In terms of attrib­ut­es, this shirt comes with our clas­sic Eng­lish spread col­lar and 2 but­ton square cut cuffs. The oth­er ben­e­fit of this shirt is it’s dura­bil­i­ty. Bam­boo has a life cycle almost 3x that of cot­ton. As such, you can expect to wear this shirt 2–3x a week if nec­es­sary for sev­er­al years.

Black Bam­boo / Cot­ton Blend Dress Shirt

Where to Buy It:

  • Deo Ver­i­tas — Black Bam­boo / Cot­ton Blend Shirt ($120)

Check out some of our other Popular Guides…

The Men’s White Dress Shirt — A Defin­i­tive Buy­ing Guide on our Favorites

Neck­tie Knots — A Defin­i­tive Guide to Wear­ing the Prop­er Knot

Untucked vs. Tucked In — A Guide to Dress Shirt Length

The Mens Black Dress Shirt: Our Definitive Style & Buying Guide (2024)
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