Prince Harry’s GQ interview outfit proves the ‘overshirt’ has finally squeezed out the old faithful suit jacket
This piece was written for and published on the LBC website on 25th October 2026. Read it here.
The British Dad uniform is always changing. When I was a boy in the noughties, any Christmas party or family barbecue saw a nauseating array of boldly patterned shirts in gaudy colours, often depicting favourite hobbies or pets. Over the top went a suit jacket, blazer or sports coat, with lapels and square shoulders. It was every dad’s party uniform in the noughties. It told everyone in attendance, ‘I tried’.
We hated them for it. The bold shirts were hideous, and they clashed terribly with the formal jackets. It was James May. It was Richard Hammond. No, worse: it was Jeremy Vine.
But we would have savoured those novelty patterns, tweed blazers and tan leather brogues had we known what dire choices the next generation of dads would make. Look at men in their forties today and the sports coats are gone. The shirts are gone. In their place is the most catastrophically boring combo known to man: shackets and white t-shirts. The shacket has taken over, and it is a disaster.
What is a shacket? At its simplest, it’s a long-sleeved, button-down shirt worn over a T-shirt. But having spawned into a clothing category of its own, shackets have strayed a little from their roots. Now cut from heavier fabrics, they often feature poppers, zips and pockets. They still nod to a traditional shirt, with cuffs, buttons and collars, but are different enough to be their own thing.
Once upon a time, shackets were exclusively reserved for the most fashion-blind and insecure men of the millennial generation. Men who, like their fathers, wanted to tell the world ‘I tried’ without putting any thought or ingenuity into their outfits, and certainly without risking looking even slightly camp. They were mocked for it, and rightfully so.
Despite our best efforts to mock and shame shacket wearers, they ploughed on. And tragically, these dull men normalised the look. We’ve suffered years of gentle exposure to them, at family functions, in pub gardens and on panel shows and chat shows. It has worn us down. They’ve won. Society has been left with little choice but to accept shackets as the new normal, just as we did with QR code menus and adverts on Netflix.
But this week, they transcended basic casual wear for men unburdened with a personality and became something extraordinary. Somehow, the shacket-and-T-shirt combo has now become a genuine alternative to the faithful suit-jacket-and-shirt combo: the safe haven that kept fashion-blind men looking reasonably presentable for decades.
The moment came when Prince Harry appeared in a sit-down interview with GQ magazine wearing a beige shacket over a black t-shirt. In that instant, shackets claimed the crown as the illegitimate heir of the smart-casual throne. They reached the highest echelon of society, draped over the shoulders of a man who is one minibus crash away from becoming King of England.
It would take a multi-million-pound government inquiry, led by some Lord or Baroness, to truly understand how this scandal took shape. But here is my pet theory.
Suit jackets, blazers and sport coats worked for so long because of two unique qualities. Firstly, unlike almost any other jacket, they are completely acceptable to wear indoors. Sit around in a restaurant wearing a harrington, leather bomber or parka and people assume you’re eyeing the exit. Secondly, the long lapels and open chest divide the torso vertically. Much like wearing a vertically striped shirt or dress, this is flattering: it gives an impression of height and gently breaks up an otherwise broad midriff.
Alas, there was a problem. After Covid lockdowns, suit jackets felt stuffy. We’d just spent three years Zoom-calling each other wearing pyjamas and hoodies, for God’s sake. This helped bring about the final collapse of smart clothing, which had long been sliding from public favour. Even news broadcasters ordered their presenters to incinerate their fuddy-duddy suits, most likely on the same fire they used to burn newsreaders’ desks.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and the shacket slid neatly into place to fill the void. Here was a casual jacket that signalled just the right amount of effort: an item you can wear indoors without giving the impression you’ve got somewhere else to be. And with those draping, unbuttoned folds of fabric, it created oh-so-flattering vertical dividers.
But this new dad uniform is categorically worse than its noughties predecessor. Instead of gloriously gaudy patterned shirts, we have a symphony of beige. You might have noticed that Harry’s shacket was almost identical to the beige one worn by Keir Starmer a few weeks ago. Shackets rarely deviate from basic earth tones, and the world is all the blander for it.
Gone, too, is the powerful, flattering shape of a tailored jacket. Sharp, square shoulders. Bold silhouettes. A flash of colourful silk lining. Yes, it was a bit much, but it made dads everywhere just that little bit more… Bond. Compare that to a cotton shacket, hanging limply from the shoulders like a pyjama top. Softening and shrinking the wearer, robbing him of his presence. How dull!
I distinctly remember one blazer my dad used to wear. It was a very dark grey, with the gruff texture of mottled tweed. It had black lapels and deep purple lining – it was as noughties as financial crashes and SMS messaging. Gaudy and ostentatious, perhaps. But when, as a boy, I pulled that enormous jacket over my tiny shoulders and felt the structure of the cut and the roughness of the fabric, it made me feel that Dad was 10 feet tall and strong as an ox.
Could any boy say the same of his dad’s floppy, beige shacket?
I thought not.
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