I’ve been looking for more warm weather shirts to wear and test out, and came across the Bonobos Linen Henley. I grabbed one to test out, and while nice, it is an imperfect shirt.

I’ve been testing it in the heat for some time now, so let us dive in.

Materials

This is a 100% linen shirt with a very open knit to it. The linen itself is still a little rough feeling, but as typical with linen it should soften over time. More than the fabric, it is the open knit of the shirt which really stands out here.

It can almost feel see through at times, and yet the fabric itself feels substantial. From that perspective, it is really neat.

Fit and Style

This is a great looking Henley, with a sweater like look, but still light and airy. There is a slight cuff around the waist and the arms to enhance the sweater like feel to the style. Overall the style of the shirt is fantastic.

The fit is where things get tricky with this shirt, I ordered my normal Large, but should have tried to get a large-tall in this shirt as I find the body to be short feeling. But in appearance it doesn’t look short at all — I can’t reconcile that for you. I think the cuff around the waist makes the shirt feel like it is constantly riding up your waist all day.

One thing to note is that the shirt does tend to shrink up vertically after being washed and hung to dry. You can pull it once dry to get the length back and it stays until washed again, which is nice. However be warned that any pull on this shirt, if not done carefully and evenly, will result in warping and stupid looking spots on the shirt. Very odd. The fabric, even when hung dry, tightens back up and requires a bit of tugging to get it back to the shape it came in, but that’s rife with problems as the fabric shows any little mishap in your tugging on it.

Performance

The idea with this shirt is that it is a sharp looking Henley which wears cool. Both the linen fabric, and the open knit lend itself to being exactly that. But, the shirt falls down a bit when you really put it to the test. Because in the hot and humid outdoor weather here in Houston, this shirt fails.

The shirt soaks up moisture and seems to hold on to it. While the shirt is breathable, that goes away once wet with sweat. This is one of the warmer shirts I own to wear outdoors, and yet it wears cool inside where the AC is in full effect.

My bet is that in a drier climate this would be great even outdoors, but otherwise it doesn’t work well in the humidity. It gets wet enough that I had trouble taking the shirt off, so yeah. Those of you in Arizona might love this.

I’ll stop short of saying it doesn’t perform, because it does wear very nicely indoors and on less humid days. But I will say to avoid this if you live somewhere humid. There are better options, even other linens perform better in humidity.

Overall

Not great for hot and humid, but still pretty solid and a really good looking shirt. If you can find it on sale, go for it. Otherwise you might look towards different options.

At $88, I would pass on it.

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