Are Men Ready for the Return of the Shiny Dress Shirt?

The designer Julian Louie remembers the first shiny dress shirt he ever saw: an iridescent purple number worn by director Todd Haynes during the press tour for his 1998 film Velvet Goldmine (fittingly, a movie about 1970s glam rock). Louie came across that image of Haynes in the 2000s, and something about the shirt stuck with him. That rakish, slightly decadent menswear became central to Aubero, the label he launched in 2022. Earlier this year, Pedro Pascal showed up on the red carpet in a shiny Aubero shirt that rivaled the juicy, luminously green interior of a freshly cut lime.

Pascal isn’t the only movie star embracing a little sheen these days. Riz Ahmed delivered a one-two punch on the recent Digger press tour, during which he sported both a black silk habotai shirt by Lemaire and a silk chartreuse tee under a gray Saint Laurent suit. Last month, the actor-skateboarder Nico Hiraga showed up at the Toronto International Film Festival in a supremely shiny mauve shirt, worn unbuttoned to his sternum. Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie, who is a Saint Laurent brand ambassador, has made a habit of wearing the label’s silky shirts. Meanwhile, Resident Evil star Austin Abrams took it a step further and opted for a shiny two-piece suit from Maison Valentino. Hollywood’s leading men, it seems, are looking a whole lot glossier.

Anyone old enough to remember the early 2000s knows this isn’t the first time shiny shirts have had a moment in Hollywood. Think of Brad Pitt’s wardrobe as Rusty Ryan in the Ocean’s franchise, which basically mirrored the actor’s own red-carpet fashion at the time (and sometimes even in the present day). Or the bros on Entourage, whose fondness of shiny “going-out shirts” sometimes seemed eerily interchangeable with the actors who played them. The glossy dress shirt has a documented history of appearing both impossibly cool and slightly ridiculous, so even as other Y2K styles surge through menswear, it’s little surprising that the shiny button-up has come around again. (Proceed with caution, though: A few wrong turns and guys will be back in bedazzled jeans and gelled faux hawks.)

Sophie Jordan, the menswear buying director at luxury retailer Mytheresa, points to the spring 2026 collections as a turning point. “Gucci’s first collection under Demna showcased this shiny evening shirt in a sexy way but still a strong edge of masculinity,” she says, noting that Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford—always the proprietor of sexy, nightlife-ready clothes—also offered printed silk shirts that same season, which were a hit with Mytheresa’s shoppers. Since then, designers (including Demna) have just kept ’em coming.

Jordan places the shiny shirt within a broader category she calls the “evening shirt,” which encompasses everything from silk and sequins to velvet and sheer fabrics. The appeal isn’t necessarily to dress like, say, the Roxbury Guys of Saturday Night Live fame, but rather to tap into some of menswear’s more sensual currents. “This style of shirt plays into that without being too over the top. Fundamentally, the shape and silhouette is very classic,” she says. “When styled with a pair of tailored pants, it’s very easy to wear and adds an evening feel to the styling without being overdone.” In other words, a little shine can is a relatively low-lift way to make an impression.

“I like the pairing of a very expressive material used on a super straightforward silhouette,” says Louie, the Aubero designer. For some of his label’s earliest designs, Louie deconstructed mid-century silk taffeta cocktail dresses and turned them into board shorts. “It was about taking a material that has always been associated with a more feminine couture sensibility and applying it to a men’s wardrobe in an unexpected way,” he says.

But, as with most things, the shiny dress shirt never truly went away. It’s a perennial fixture on the runway of labels like Tom Ford and Dolce & Gabbana. Dries Van Noten elevated the garment with prints and patterns into something approaching high art, while the cult Swedish brand Our Legacy continues to turn out the wonderfully weird shirting that has continually wooed menswear’s more adventurous dressers. But what’s changed is how many guys seem willing to give the look a shot. It certainly helps that shiny dress shirts slide into today’s slouchy tailoring as well as the sexier, more retro fare à la Anthony Vaccarello’s final work at Saint Laurent (as seen on Storrie) or the French breakout label Husbands.

For those curious but are perhaps afraid of veering too close to “lounge lizard” territory, there are plenty of halfway steps. Many labels, including Auralee and Tom Ford, offer dress shirts in cotton-silk blends that feature more dull cotton than shiny silk, for a finish that catches the light without going full disco ball. For newbies, “it’s a smart idea to build up to it,” says Jordan. A little texture and a little sheen will go a long way for guys who don’t typically spend their evenings walking red carpets.

In recent years, the stronghold of “quiet luxury” and tasteful neutrals has been so enduring that it’s easy to forget that clothes are allowed to be a little ridiculous, a bit sexy, and hell, even fun. Perhaps that’s what all these newfangled glossy dress shirts are getting at. Or as Louie put it: “Maybe this means we’ve moved on from a moment of banal clothing.”