Published on July 7, 2025
Chandler Bondurant
In the workwear world, chambray is a bit of a unicorn. While many of the fabrics utilized in workwear—speaking both historically, and to its status as an aesthetic trend today—happen to be heavy and stiff, chambray is soft and lightweight with a distinct character of its own.
Its name is derived from Cambrai, the Northern French city where it was first produced. The simply woven fabric is essentially a broadcloth—hence its softness and weight—but made with colored (usually blue) warp threads and white weft threads. The outcome is a pleasingly mottled appearance that earns comparisons to denim, which is similarly woven with a colored warp and a white weft but is milled as a more dense and substantial twill.
As a breathable, inexpensive fabric, chambray became a workwear staple in the 19th and 20th centuries, and modern examples often call back to its blue-collar roots with prole details like flapped front pockets and reinforced stitching. But increasingly, designers and brands are tapping into its appeal as a warm-weather fabric and fashioning it into more modern applications as a sport shirt, a guayabera, and even a pleated dinner shirt.
In that spirit, we’ve helpfully composed a survey of the more desirable chambray models on the market below, no matter what your employ.
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Wythe Chambray Workshirt
Image Credit: Wythe To make this iteration of its work shirt, Wythe faded and distressed a cotton chambray fabric until it resembled the wear on a shirt pulled from a Kentucky farmhouse. Its range of vintage-inspired details—oversized font pockets, triple needle stitching, and a throat latch—are sure to please even the pickiest workwear devotees.
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Visvim Keesey Shirt
Image Credit: Visvim With its squared hem, dual flapped chest pockets, and chainstitched embroidery at the chest—in this case, spelling “Keesey”—this Visvim shirt would be right at home in a circa 1953 auto shop. But take a look under the hood, and you’ll notice that its chambray fabric is a more interesting (and subtly luxurious) blending of 78 percent cotton and 22 percent silk.
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Rubato Roper Shirt
Image Credit: Rubato Swedish brand Rubato has earned accolades in the menswear world for its idiosyncratic obsession with finding the perfect fabric for the handful of new garments it releases each season. In the case of its Western-styled roper shirt, that would be a five-ounce Japanese chambray that’s weighted lightly enough to wear through summer, but substantial enough to patinate further with wear.
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RRL Indigo Chambray Workshirt
Image Credit: Ralph Lauren It’s not possible to touch on a piece from the workwear canon without including something from RRL, Polo’s rugged and worn-in older brother. A mainstay season after season is its chambray workshirt, made from indigo-dyed fabric that’s been washed to that perfectly broken-in shade of light blue and then hand-sanded for an extra timeworn look.
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Indi + Ash Smith Workshirt
Image Credit: Indi + Ash Smith Workshirt Indi + Ash proudly manufactures in India and sees every garment as an opportunity to highlight the artistry of local craftspeople. Its Smith work shirt is no exception. Made from a handwoven, indigo-dyed cotton chambray, it’s guaranteed to pick up patina over time, even if the only worksite it sees is your neighborhood café.
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Eleventy Milano Dandy Shirt
Image Credit: Eleventy Milano Dandy Shirt Milan-based Eleventy makes a point of manufacturing in Italy to champion its “smart luxury” aesthetic. A shining example of its point-of-view is its Dandy shirt, whose spread collar contrasts artfully with the workwear appeal of chambray. Wear it open at the neck with white denim or perhaps beneath your most casual blazer with a navy knit tie.
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Eighteen East SS Hollow Shirt
Image Credit: Eighteen East SS Hollow Shirt While the fabric is primarily identified with cotton, cult favorite Eighteen East opted for a piece-dyed linen twill when making its iteration of the chambray work shirt. A square hem, short zipped placket, and mitered chest pockets—one of which is marked by a custom-designed, workwear-inspired label—only increases its blue-collar appeal.
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Drake’s Bleach Wash Chambray Shirt
Image Credit: Drake’s Chambray work shirts often have two pockets. Make it four . . . and you’re suddenly in guayabera territory. That’s what’s seemed to have happened with this bleach wash chambray Cuban shirt by Drake’s, which also sports the vertical pleats common to the Latin American style.
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Budd Denim Pleated Bib Evening Shirt
Image Credit: Budd Shirtmakers File under “why not”: A pleated evening shirt in an exclusive Thomas Mason denim inspired by chambray. The fruits of a collaboration between London-based bespoke maker Budd and Wm Brown magazine founder Matt Hranek, it also sports a forward collar and cocktail cuffs, and might just be the answer to the “creative black tie” riddle.
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100 Hands Ice Washed Japanese Chambray Shirt
Image Credit: 100 Hands Chambray may be a humble fabric, but 100 Hands has elevated it to new heights with its Iced Washed Japanese Chambray Shirt. A part of the maker’s Gold Line, it benefits from 34 hours of handwork, manifested in signs of craftsmanship like hand-embroidered buttonholes, hand-rolled hems, and hand-sewn side seams, sleeves, and collar. Initially a deep blue, the raw chambray used to make the shirt is first washed to achieve its light “ice” hue, which will complement anything from mossy tweeds to indigo denim.
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Kamakura Vintage Ivy Chambray Popover
Image Credit: Kamakura For all of its identification with workwear, there’s a strong tradition of chambray being worn on campus, too. As part of its Vintage Ivy collection designed in collaboration with British illustrator Graham Marsh, Kamakura has produced this chambray popover with all the trad details: a relaxed fit, single chest pocket, and a soft and unlined button-down collar.
