The Camp Collar Shirt: How to Wear 80s Miami Prints Now

Sonny Crockett spent five seasons of Miami Vice solving violent crimes in a shirt with no top button, and nobody in the Miami-Dade Police Department appears to have raised it once. Tommy Vercetti did roughly the same thing a decade later in a game where the shirt became the character. The camp collar shirt is the piece the whole 80s Miami look is built on, and it is still the fastest way to make an outfit specific.

It is also our best selling category, which means we get the same three questions constantly: how loud can the print be, what goes underneath, and does it tuck. Here are the answers.

What actually makes a collar a camp collar

Look at the neck. A normal shirt collar has a stand, a small strip of fabric holding it upright so it can close around a tie. A camp collar has no stand. The collar folds flat against the chest and forms a V. That is the entire difference, and it changes the whole garment.

No stand means the shirt physically cannot be buttoned to the throat. It was designed to hang open, which is why it looks relaxed even in expensive fabric, and why it looks wrong with anything formal. The aloha shirt arrived in Hawaii in the 1930s with the same construction and the same logic: it is hot, stop strangling yourself.

How loud is too loud

Print intensity is where people get it wrong. The rule is simple. The busier the print, the plainer everything else has to be. One statement, then silence.

• Full pattern, edge to edge. The Retro Hawaiian Shirt 1983 and the Flamingo Floral Shirt 1982 live here. Solid trousers, solid shoes, nothing else patterned. If you are wearing a flamingo, the flamingo is the outfit.
• Geometric or repeated blocks. The Geometric Shirt 1982 and the Vercetti Shirt 1986 sit in the middle. The pattern is strong but regular, so from across a room the shirt reads as a colour rather than a picture. Easiest tier to wear.
• Scenic prints. The Kanagawa Waves Shirt puts one artwork across the body. Treat it as a poster you have agreed to wear in public. Solid everything else, and no other artwork anywhere on you.

If you have never worn a printed shirt, start with the geometric tier. The Vercetti Shirt 1986 at $47.99 is our single most bought product, and the reason is that it is loud enough to be interesting and regular enough not to wear you.

What goes underneath

Three options, ranked by how often they work.

Nothing. Period correct, and the best answer in genuine heat. Only works if the fabric is opaque enough that the print does not go semi transparent the moment you step into sunlight.

A plain white or black tee. The version most people should use. It solves the transparency problem, it lets you wear the shirt fully open like a light overshirt, and it draws a clean horizontal line at the neck. Crew neck, not V neck.

A tank. Extremely 1986. Commit or do not.

Buttoned, half open, or fully open

Fully buttoned looks stiff, because you are closing a shirt engineered to hang open. Leave the top two or three undone and let the collar sit flat where it wants to. With a tee underneath, going fully open turns the shirt into a light jacket, which is the easiest way to carry the loudest prints.

Tucked or untucked

Untucked, almost always. These shirts are cut boxy with a straight hem specifically so they can hang. Most of ours end just below the belt line, which is exactly right. If yours covers your back pockets, the length is wrong for the cut and it will read as sloppy instead of relaxed.

The exception is high waisted trousers, where a front tuck works and looks deliberately period correct.

What to put with it

The rest of the outfit does not need to be interesting. That is the job description.

Daytime: shirt, plain tee, straight leg trousers or tailored shorts, low top canvas sneakers. Evening: same shirt, darker trousers, leather sneakers or boots, and metal frame sunglasses rather than plastic.

Printed shirt with printed shorts is the 1987 package holiday look. Some people carry it. Most of us are not on a package holiday.

Sizing

These are cut boxy on purpose. Order your usual fitted size and you will get something closer to modern slim fit, which quietly cancels the whole silhouette. Read the chest measurement on the product page instead of trusting the letter. Our shirts run from S to 5XL depending on the piece, and if you are between sizes, size up. The full explanation is in our guide to retro sizing.

Questions we get

Is a camp collar shirt the same as a Hawaiian shirt? Not quite. Hawaiian describes the print, camp collar describes the collar. Most Hawaiian shirts have a camp collar, but a plain black camp collar shirt is not Hawaiian.

Can I wear one to an office? A plain or subtly patterned one, in a relaxed office, yes. A full scenic print, no. This is weekend clothing that occasionally passes for Friday clothing.

Which one should I buy first? The Vercetti Shirt 1986, for the reasons above. If you want something quieter, the City Night Shirt 1986 is the same cut with less shouting.

One honest warning

A printed camp collar shirt is a high recognition piece. People notice it, remember it, and notice when it comes round again. If you want something to wear twice a week without comment, buy plain. If you want the shirt people ask about, this is precisely that, and it is why the look survived from 1984 Miami to Vice City to now.

More on this world: Who is Tommy Vercetti? · Miami Vice's influence on retrowave · 80s Miami: the magic and the madness

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