Navy White Striped Oversized Cotton Shirt Dress

These two shirt dresses trace the long arc of borrowing from the boys' club, but they steal from different floors of the menswear department. The 2010s striped dress raids the casual weekend wardrobe—those breezy oversized proportions and nautical stripes that whisper "borrowed boyfriend shirt"—while the 1970s grey number lifts straight from the boardroom, complete with that Prince of Wales check and tailored collar that means business.

These two dresses reveal how the borrowed-from-the-boys shirt dress keeps reinventing itself across decades. The 1990s Italian denim version takes the utilitarian work shirt and stretches it into a sleeveless column, those twin chest pockets and button placket maintaining the masculine grammar even as the proportions turn unexpectedly elegant.