T-Shirts Over Everything — Including T-Shirts
Sure, you know about layering. The worst-kept secret to a great outfit is also a cold-weather necessity, jackets bundled over knitwear and shirting in a delightful canvas of colors and textures. But the fun doesn’t have to stop come summer.
How, you ask? Simple! Layer your T-shirts.
The same principle applies, where mixing and matching various basics delivers a satisfying clash of fabrics. But since we’re working with tees, it’s considerably more lightweight and amenable to the season.
Miu Miu is a strong and particularly stylish proponent of this proposition. Prada’s sibling brand has long sold a three-pack of T-shirts, one sleeveless, one short-sleeved, and one long-sleeved, all intended to be worn together as one look.
On its website, Miu Miu demonstrates this by stacking a navy tank top above a lime green short-sleeve atop an off-white long-sleeved number. That’s color theory according to the world’s hottest brand.
Also for summer, and at its first-ever runway show, A$AP Rocky’s AWGE brand styled white short-sleeved thermal tops above matching long-sleeves with a beige shirt in between. At Ferragamo’s Spring/Summer 2025 presentation, three tank tops were stacked into one monochrome pile while Balenciaga built hoop jerseys into tees. Elsewhere, 30-year-old Japanese imprint SOPHNET. layered Champion tops in such a way as to keep the sleeve logos showing simultaneously. This is the season of the stacked tees, clearly.
Established precedent for wearing two (or more) tops at a time comes from ‘80s and ‘90s countercultures. Grunge and nu-metal bands, and the skaters who listened to them, would layer their shirts in a way that evoked cultural touchstones from Kurt Cobain to Tony Hawk. The short-sleeve-over-long-sleeve look was a subcultural signifier that, as with all good things born of culture, was eventually co-opted by the mainstream.
In the mid-2000s, this sort of look was ubiquitous. People as disparate as Hannah Montana, Eminem, and even my adolescent self were all coupling T-shirts.
Pre-doubled-up T-shirts are a bit less commonplace but remain such a staple that they’re still available at all price points, from skate brands like Welcome, menswear labels like Carrer, and luxury-leaning fashion imprints like Acne Studios.
From that time-honored styling of two simultaneous tees emerges this new wave of T-shirt trios. It’s an upping of the stakes. The more tees, the more fun.
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