The White T-Shirt No. More. Skulls. Please. If you’re not an actual MMA fighter with billboards, a reality show and an energy drink to call your own, leave the Affliction and Tapout where they belong at Buckle. Since we’re focusing on easy summer clothing, let’s go and find the anti-Affliction shirt. It’s not on the rack; it’s wrapped in plastic and comes in threes. Yep, the basic white t-shirt.

For the purposes of the discussion, though, a few ground rules. Like the khakis, you’ll need to throw away your assumptions about “undershirts”: make it fit you, not float around you; make it v-neck, because it’s more interesting than crewneck, and more classy than a wife beater; and most importantly, no logos!

Paired with khakis, shorts or jeans, you can’t go wrong with a white shirt, and you would be hard pressed to find a more comfortable shirt than a cotton t-shirt that’s been washed a few times. (A note on washing: to keep the shirts a brilliant white, use bleach. And don’t wear the shirts by themselves once they start to “turn”, color-wise.)

A few brands to look for: Calvin Klein is still the gold standard here, but higher-tier brands like 2xist and Burberry make fantastic first-layers, too. Why not buy quantity and quality at the same time?

(Sorry for the dearth of pics, but c’mon: you know what they look like.)

-Rob Hays