--- --- # In Defense of That J-Crew Gingham Shirt  by [Alex Fitzpatrick](https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/)  ## Alex Fitzpatrick Aug 22, 2014 3:01 PM UTC  by [Alex Fitzpatrick](https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/)  ## Alex Fitzpatrick Aug 22, 2014 3:01 PM UTC **Updated 12:05 p.m. ET** Listen up, folks: That blue checkered J-Crew gingham style shirt [everyone’s making fun of today](http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/j-crew-gingham-shirt-instagram)? Stop it. That shirt is _wonderful._ The frock-mockery started with an [Instagram account](http://instagram.com/thatjcrewginghamshirt) that’s posting images of various men (and women, and even babies) wearing the very same J-Crew shirt. There’s often something on Instagram or Tumblr that people are making fun of, from men who sit with their [legs too wide on the subway](http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com/) to guys[ who hate shopping](http://instagram.com/miserable%5Fmen). This new one’s admittedly pretty funny on first glance: Hey, look at all these dudes wearing the same shirt! Here’s the thing: yeah, that shirt’s popular. And yeah, I own one! But there’s a good reason for that: It’s a pretty classic American shirt great for all occasions, it almost never goes out of style and it’s super easy to pull out of my closet and match with a whole bunch of different pants and shoes so I look decent with minimal effort, which is really the apex of men’s fashion for me and probably lots of other dudes (It’s all about efficiency.) So the shirt is _fine,_ folks. But fashion issues aside, there’s another problem with this Instagram page — it’s totally a form of cyberbullying. It seems like whoever’s running the account is either taking creepshots of men wearing a gingham shirt while unaware their photo is being taken or grabbing such images from elsewhere on Instagram or the wider web. Either way, this isn’t cool — because while it may be all in good fun to whoever’s running the account, the page isn’t laughing _with_ the men rocking the gingham shirts, it’s laughing _at_ them. And nobody, whether man, woman or adorable tiny baby, deserves to be Insta-shamed about their wardrobe. **Update:** Taylor Lorenz over at the _Daily Mail_ [interviewed](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2731293/Does-man-shirt-closet-New-Instagram-account-pays-tribute-THAT-J-Crew-gingham-favorite.html) the creator of the Instagram account, who seems to be doing it less as an insult and more of a tribute to this fine piece of apparel. Carry on, good sir! In Defense of That J-Crew Gingham Shirt ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3159706/j-crew-gingham-shirt/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3159706/j-crew-gingham-shirt/"},"headline":"In Defense of That J-Crew Gingham Shirt","datePublished":"2014-08-22T15:01:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:52.258Z","description":"Op-ed gingham style","url":"https://time.com/3159706/j-crew-gingham-shirt/","keywords":["Living","fashion"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Fitzpatrick","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alex-fitzpatrick/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3159706/j-crew-gingham-shirt/","name":"In Defense of That J-Crew Gingham Shirt"}}]}] ```