The Best Waffle Thermal Layer Is Your Heartthrob Style Hack

More Thermal Shirts We Love

Uniqlo

Waffle T-Shirt

Looking to refresh your thermal rotation for the season? Step one: Add three of these cheap-and-cheery closet essentials to your cart and thank us later.

NN07

Clive Long Sleeve Waffle Knit Tee

Like Reigning Champ’s, NN07’s waffle thermal has been made from a super soft, lightweight, TENCEL modal blend. The reason it costs a little more? The look is much cleaner, with no seams across the shoulders or the back.

Gap

Waffle Crew T-Shirt

Gap’s waffle thermals come in a ton of colors, and all the quieter, classic shades are there. But when there’s also this red for you to consider, we have to lead with it.

Standard Issue

Thermal Knit Long Sleeve T-Shirt

This thermal is the undisputed layering champ when temperatures dip below freezing. At a jaw-dropping 24 oz. (that’s 1.5 lbs. of pure comfort), it’s like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of thermals—bulky in the best way, just like the brand’s most famous wearers, from Jay-Z to LeBron James.

Warehouse

Four Needle Waffle-Knit Thermal Tee

Japanese repro labels are renowned for their obsessive attention to detail, and Warehouse is Exhibit A. Its thermal is built to last so long that your grandkids might stumble upon it in the attic someday and wonder if it was part of some ancient, indestructible uniform.

Sunspel

Waffle Crewneck T-Shirt

Sunspel elevates its waffle-knit with luxurious, feather-light Supima cotton. It’s sturdy enough to slip under your heaviest sweater, but cozy enough to make you rethink your bedtime getup.

How to Style a Thermal Shirt

Since its post-war rise to glory, the waffle-knit thermal hasn’t just stayed in its lane as a base layer. Sure, it’s still a no-brainer under a hefty bomber jacket or a tattered flannel, but these days, it looks just as killer leaning into its distinctly throwback vibe. Toss one under a short-sleeve vintage tee, add some baggy jeans, and voila: you’re instantly channeling Austin Butler on the set of Caught Stealing—or any number of Hollywood hotshots arriving at a premier in the ‘90s.

How We Test and Review Products

Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.

Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.

How We Make These Picks

We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.

To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.

We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.

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