How to Wear a Printed Linen Shirt: 6 Ways We Style Ours

Most guides to linen shirts tell you to keep things neutral: white, grey, maybe a pale blue, worn with jeans and a blazer. That is not how we wear ours. Our linen shirts are printed with bold, colourful artwork, and they are meant to be the first thing you notice. This is how we style them, and where the prints come from.

Where our prints come from

A lot of Studio Afuera comes from looking back at where we come from, through the eyes of people who now live somewhere else. Our founders grew up between Peru, the Middle East and Europe, and our studio is in London. From here, ordinary things from home start to look different.

Our Caral collection takes its inspiration from Caral, in Peru, one of the oldest cities in the Americas. Our first drop borrowed from something much more everyday: the printed rice bags you find in Peruvian kitchens and markets, along with the food, the stalls and the colours of the street. We like taking those familiar references and putting them somewhere new, so you can see them, and wear them, differently.

The shirts themselves are cut from Italian linen and made in Lisbon. Every piece is unisex.

1. Wear it as a set

This is how we wear our linen most often. Each printed shirt has matching trousers, and together they make one easy outfit with no decisions left to make. Try the Loli shirt with the Loli trousers, or the Caramelo Naranja set for something warmer. A full print from head to toe sounds bold, but in soft, relaxed linen it feels surprisingly calm.

2. Wear it open over one of our tees

Unbutton the shirt and wear it like a light jacket over a t-shirt. Our tees carry short sentences in Spanish, little phrases we grew up with, like Afuera Es Casa (outside is home) or Báilalo Afuera. The print frames the phrase, and the outfit starts a conversation.

3. Split the set

Once you own a set, you have two pieces to play with. Wear the shirt with plain trousers and let the print do the talking, or flip it: printed trousers with a simple tee. The Abrazo shirt and Abrazo trousers work beautifully on their own as well as together.

4. Add a Piropo bag

In Peru, a piropo is a small compliment, the kind someone says in passing that stays with you all day. Our Piropo knot bags are made by hand in Peru, and they bring a second colour story into the outfit. Pair a printed shirt with a bag in a contrasting tone, like the Piropo Reversible in Cereza & Aqua, or let it pick up one colour from the print, like the Piropo in Ocre and light blue.

5. Tie on a silk scarf

Our silk scarves start as hand-painted drawings, which are then printed onto silk in our studio. Tied at the neck, knotted on a bag handle or worn in the hair, a scarf adds a layer of softness to linen. Mixing two prints is part of the fun: try The Twins or The Guide with any of our shirts.

6. Finish with colour on your feet

In our shoots, printed linen goes with slippers, sandals or bright trainers, never with formal shoes. Linen is relaxed, and the shoes should be too. Barefoot on a terrace counts as well.

How to care for a printed linen shirt

Wash cool and inside out to protect the print, and dry it flat or on a hanger. Linen creases, and that is part of its charm. If you want it smoother, iron it inside out while still slightly damp.