July can be a sleepy month in fashion—if not in American politics—so we thought this would be an ideal time to do an investigation on some of our favorite runway trends from the past year, focusing on those that were styling-based as opposed to a new garment silhouette. We wanted to be able to try it with pieces that already exist in our closets; no calling in clothes and no purchases allowed. We settled on five key styling hacks: double polos, sheer anything, aprons, skirts over pants, and the backward shirt, which we go into today.
As with The Row’s oft-discussed “swing a literal towel around your neck“ styling, we wanted to know: Can we pull off these trends IRL? Or is their allure just the fact that they’re on the runway? And like literally everyone with friends, we often text each other when getting dressed; it’s especially fun to experiment when you have someone just as invested in the experiment as you are.
First up in our styling-hacks experiment is the backward-button-down-shirt trend, which we have been low-key obsessed with since Dries Van Noten’s fall 2024 show. On the surface it’s simple: Get a shirt, and put it on backward. But as we soon discovered, not all shirts are made equal.
José Criales-Unzueta: Here’s my first attempt. I love this Christopher John Rogers shirt because it’s very light, so I thought it would work well for this. I paired it with a skirt to keep the silhouette easy.
Laia Garcia-Furtado: The CJR shirt and the skirt have a real summer, breezy vibe. Did you button your shirt all the way to the top? I realized that that makes a big difference in the fit of the shirt.
Criales-Unzueta: It definitely does. I buttoned it all the way up at first, and it did not work—it was a little too…buttoned up. (Sorry!!)
Garcia-Furtado: Lmaooo.
Criales-Unzueta: I did two undone to give some shoulder action. The collar is also very flimsy, which works. It must also be said that I had no one to help with the buttons, which added a layer of difficulty here.
Garcia-Furtado: Yeah, I buttoned only the top two buttons, mostly because I feel like we’re not supposed to actually do all the buttons—like, then suddenly you are in a weird clown costume. For my first attempt, I actually layered two shirts—which we’ll get into later this week as well. One is a sheer beige shirt from Maria McManus that I had a bit of a laundry mishap with and now it has some weird stains on it, but I didn’t just want to give it up. Then a Collina Strada shirt on top. I think it’s the perfect combo because I love the Collina shirt, but I struggled with figuring out how to wear it to the office without it being so sheer, so this was my solve. I tried leaving it untucked, but it felt a little too messy.
Criales-Unzueta: I love the layering of the two shirts, and I like that it allows you to play with maybe unbuttoning the sheer one in the back for some added back pizzazz. What I like about this is that it’s tucked in and with pants—a slimmer silhouette altogether, which feels fresh. The runways were all oversized.
Garcia-Furtado: You and I both love a giant silhouette to hide under, but lately I’ve been wanting something new.
Criales-Unzueta: I tried this option, too, to give it a bit of a menswear spin. This shirt is cut in satin by Julian Louie of Aubero, one of my current menswear obsessions. It’s crispier and shinier, so I paired it with a black trouser and these Thom Browne heavy loafers to make it dressier and more men’s oriented. In this case the tighter collar works, maybe?
Garcia-Furtado: I loooove this. It’s so chic and feels very Phoebe [Philo] to me also. It’s unexpected because the back yoke isn’t as obvious, so it doesn’t read as a backward shirt right away; it just reads as interesting. I feel like I want to try to re-create this one, but maybe the most key item here is the pant. If it were longer, narrower, or wider, the effect wouldn’t be the same.
Garcia-Furtado: I’ve had this shirt from Zara for a few years now; I think I bought it when I was pregnant. It’s got a shorter hem in the front and a voluminous back, and the sleeves have buttons all the way down. I threw it on on a whim and was surprised at how babydoll-ish it looked. Also because it doesn’t button all the way up to the neck, the collar rests in an almost boatneck-y sort of way. I decided to play up the tunic aspect of it and then just put on my stripe-y Bode x Nike shorts underneath. (You need something underneath because it’s shorter in the back, lol.)
Criales-Unzueta: I love this! I think the shirt as dress is one of the most successful iterations of this styling trick because it feels the least studied. There’s something very “I threw this on by mistake, and it worked,” very Carrie Bradshaw in just a white shirt and an Hermès belt.
Garcia-Furtado: Oh god, that’s such an iconic moment. I will probably wear this one a lot. I hadn’t worn this shirt in ages because it felt too… boring? But now I love it again.
Criales-Unzueta: I think that this is my most successful ’fit here. It’s a Duckie Brown shirt that is simply massive, following your tunic-dress footprint. The proportions, I think, work—we love a tent—and it feels a little less contrived. The shirt is also just weird, which helps. I also think I prefer these when the shirt is plain as opposed to in a print, though your sheer Collina one is chef’s kiss.
Garcia-Furtado: No one does a massive silhouette like the Duckies, and that’s the truth. I love this because it feels very “throw it on and go” but also expensive, which is, like, the hardest combination. She’s coquette but formal. I guess now we just have to make sure we don’t show up at the office both wearing backward shirts on the same day, really.
