Vintage T

By The Editors of GQ

As much as we love a crisp white tee, there's something about vintage T-shirts that make our menswear-obsessed hearts beat just a little faster, and our copping fingers twitch just a little more furiously. Maybe it's the journey of combing through rack after rack in our favorite secondhand spots to find that diamond in the rough, or maybe it's the unique characteristics vintage tees accrue over a lifetime of wear. Faded colors, ripped fabrics, cracked graphics? All those "defects" only add to a vintage tee's one-of-one allure, helping them spin a gripping yarn (heh) that their newer counterparts—even the very best of 'em—can only hope to approximate.

Most people consider vintage T-shirts pretty casual—ideal Sunday-morning-grocery-run fare, for example—but GQ staffers are not most people. So for the latest episode of the GQ Recommends Show, we tapped a handful of our colleagues to spotlight their favorite vintage T-shirts, where they bought them, and most importantly, how they wear them. Turns out, they're a lot more versatile than you'd expect.

Peep the full video below, and feel free to bang our line with your own story (and photographic evidence!) describing the come-up of your dreams. The next time occasion dictates you pull up in an absolutely enormous fit, consider ditching those freshly-laundered tees you cop by the 5-pack—and then throw on the perfectly-faded, totally unique vintage joint you actually wanted to wear.