A casual outfit featuring a nice floral button up

It’s almost Spring, which means it’s time for floral prints. Spring is all about working vivid colors, interesting patterns, and casual flair into your outfits; floral prints do all of this at the same time, and they have been on-trend for quite a while in menswear (do you remember all those rose patch vans? that’s what I’m talking about).

Let me tell you a story: when I first became interested in fashion, I spent about two years working on colorblocking; I only bought simple, unpatterned clothing, and focused on putting together outfits with cohesive color palettes and streamlined silhouettes. I remember the exact moment that I finally started incorporating patterns & prints into my outfits: it was March, and I was shopping in Express for some dress shirts. I happened to see a slim-fitting floral button up (like the one in the picture below) and knew that I needed it in my wardrobe.

Express’ micro printed floral button up

Floral prints seem really complicated at first — there are so many different ways to print flowers onto a shirt, and so many different potential colorschemes — but they are actually relatively mundane. When I say “floral print,” I’m referring to flowers & foliage printed against a solid color background. The art can be flower silhouettes printed in a solid color, or it can be colorful drawings of flowers. Although there are tons of potential types of flower and limitless potential colorschemes to consider, I’ve found a good general rule when it comes to floral prints: make sure the background color of the garment (e.g. navy blue in the picture above) would fit into your outfit if the piece was just that color with no pattern, and make sure that the color of the print doesn’t clash with the rest of the outfit. Also keep in mind that there are lots of exceptions to this rule — notably, you can use a print to add texture to an outfit that is otherwise boring or uninteresting. For example, I wouldn’t wear a black dress shirt with a black suit, but I would wear a black dress shirt with a white print, because the pattern will pop out and add texture & contrast.

I’m going to divide this guide into three sections: casual outfits, elevated casual outfits (approximately “business casual”), and formal outfits. I’ll provide an example or two and some tips for wearing floral prints at each level of formality. To be clear, this isn’t meant to be an catch-all guide explaining how to wear floral print, but I hope it gives you some ideas.

Note: I don’t use the term “business casual” because lots of men like to dress in nicer clothing for their everyday life. I think “elevated casual” more accurately captures my audience: basically guys who want to wear more formal outfits but who don’t want to wear suits. Not necessarily guys who dress for “business.”

Casual

Camp Collar Shirts

I know this shirt is Gucci and probably like $72,000 but you can easily find something similar at your local Urban Outfitters or H&M ;)

In the past year, camp collar shirts have evolved from what your dad wears on road trips to a GQ-approved flex. Wearing one in a floral print is an effortless way to pull one off.

Subtle Detailing

A lot of classic brands have been reworking their staple logo pieces with minimal floral designs — if you want to wear something floral and still rep your favorite brand or if you just can’t get behind full-on prints, these are the pieces for you. I’m not saying you need to go buy a $800 Givenchy tee shirt (although if you can afford that, please hire me as your personal stylist 😉); you’ll probably find a lot of rose-patterned stuff at your local urban outfitters and pacsun. Just make sure you opt for minimal, tasteful pieces so that you don’t end up looking tacky.

All-Over Microprints

You can take the button up shirts mentioned in the Elevated Casual section below and dress them down with jeans, sneakers, and a cool jacket. For example, pair a black / white patterned floral shirt with a leather biker jacket, some black skinny jeans, and black chelsea boots for a SLP-inspired look, or pair a colorful floral shirt with a denim jacket (like in the picture above), some blue jeans, and white sneakers for a more classic Americana aesthetic.

Elevated Casual

Floral Dress Shirts

This one is pretty self explanatory: you can’t go wrong wearing one with some nice trousers and some penny loafers. I personally like to wear a button-up consisting of just two colors (a base color and a color for the floral pattern, like the Express shirt I included a picture of), a pair of dark wash jeans, and white sneakers

I think that floral patterns can really add a personal flair to elevated casual outfits, but you run the risk of looking really tacky too. If that worries you, I’d advise opting for subtle patterns in neutral colors.

Formal

Floral Ties

It’s hard to work prints into formal fits; your safest and (in my opinion) coolest option is to wear a skinny tie with a vibrant print on top of a white dress shirt & a dark suit.

As always, if you enjoy my content and want to see more, you can follow me on Instagram. I hope you get to work some flowers into your outfits this Spring!