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In 2024, the best linen suits for men are a year-round flex, but spring is still their true domain. In its most formal iteration, linen makes for a blessedly out-of-the-box alternative to run-of-the-mill cotton and wool suits. The fabric’s natural breathability means it's predisposed to keep you cool through sweltering spring days and slightly-more-tolerable spring nights—and imbue your fits with a jolt of rakish insouciance in the process.
Finally headed to that wedding your cousin's postponed three times since last year? Ditch the tuxedo and opt for a pure linen suit in navy blue—and then proceed to get blissfully sloshed off the gratis bubbly while the rest of the guests shvitz through their super 110s. Looking for an office-friendly suit with just enough texture to help you stand out from the wool-wearing pack? Linen's got you covered there, too. Want a suit with a little more structure? Reach for one in a cotton-linen blend to avoid excess wrinkling.
Point is, the right linen suit will take your fits from zero to sixty faster than the latest Koenigsegg. Here are 15 of our favorites—each tested, vetted, and driven by us—to help you hit the gas, STAT.
The Best Linen Suits for Men, According to GQ
- The Best Linen Suit for the Office: Drake’s Cotton Linen Mk. I Games Suit, $1565
- The Best Travel-Ready Linen Suit: Buck Mason Carry-On Suit, $426
- The Best Linen Suit for Summer Weddings: Polo Ralph Lauren Linen Suit, $646
- The Best Linen Suit for Really Casual Summer Weddings: Alex Crane Linen Set, $350
- The Best Linen Suit You're Going to See Everywhere: J.Crew Big-Fit Linen Suit, $796
- The Best Linen Suit for '80s Banker Cosplay: Todd Snyder Italian Linen Wythe Suit, $1096
Best Linen Suit for Summer Weddings: Polo Ralph Lauren Soft Modern Linen Suit
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Coastal beige, cream | Sizes: 32-52
Here's a hot take for you: Linen, with its promise of laid-back revelry and sweat-free boogieing, might be the most American of summer suiting fabrics. (We see you, seersucker, and we regret nothing.) So it follows that the reigning master of American cool knows his way around the flaxy material better than most.
When it comes to the perilously high pile of RSVPs in your inbox, Ralph Lauren's nubby linen number is like a wearable jolt of dress code confidence—sans the rigidity of a typical capital-S Suit. The jacket's half-canvassed construction and soft shoulders means it won't look out of place at a beachside ceremony in Nantucket, but the classic khaki color and cuffed trousers bring just the right amount of formality to swankier summer nuptials. To maximize your returns, pair with a gauzy dress shirt, silky knit tie, and loafers you wouldn't mind getting sandy.
Best Linen Suit for '80s Banker Cosplay: Todd Snyder Italian Linen Wythe Suit
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Charcoal | Sizes: 36S-46L
Todd Snyder is an alum of J.Crew, where the Iowan designer helped introduce the Ludlow, the most influential mass-market suit of its era. So when Snyder's eponymous label debuted the Wythe a couple of years ago, it was hard not to see a paradigm shift in the way men dress scrawled across its swooping peak lapels, languorous pleated trousers, and louche, ‘80s-Armani-adjacent silhouette. The Wythe is now available in three-season navy blue and slate gray, but the standout version remains this chalky pinstriped number, which renders the ‘greed is good’-era pattern in an elegant linen sourced from Italy’s Subalpino mill.
As with all of Snyder's tailoring, the value proposition is second to none: for a little over a grand, you get a who's who of wonky tailoring flourishes, from the jacket's horn buttons to the trousers' set waistband. The Godfather of Italian menswear is alive and well, thank heavens, but in the Wythe, his suits have a worthy modern-day successor. Here's hoping it convinces the Ludlow crowd to level up accordingly.
The Best Linen Suit for Really Casual Summer Weddings: Alex Crane Linen Set
Fabric: European linen | Color: Varies | Sizes: XS-XXL
Who says a linen suit has to look like, well, a suit? The team behind the American label Alex Crane doesn't just design top of the line linen wares—they live and breathe the material, crafting everything from jackets to tees out of the unbeatable summer fabric.
This workwear-inspired take knocks the stuffiness straight out of the style, in the form of a verdant green set you don't need an occasion to rock. (Rest assured, it'll look plenty righteous with a button-up and a tie, too.) The chore coat-adjacent jacket, trim silhouette, and short length give the whole shebang a casual vibe that takes the guesswork out of those “garden party” dress codes. Rock on, people.
Best Travel-Ready Linen Suit: Buck Mason Carry-On Suit
Fabric: Linen hopsack | Color: Natural | Sizes: XS-XL
Many moons ago, Buck Mason was an upstart California label singularly focused on crafting the perfect T-shirt. By any metric, it succeeded. And then something strange happened: the brand's LA team turned their scrutiny to dressier fare, introducing their inaugural Carry-On suit a few years later. In 2024, Buck Mason has quietly evolved into a premier repository of wildly affordable, wildly handsome suits, each cut and finished with the same attention to detail that helped its beefy tees become a GQ favorite.
In the case of this pleasantly rumpled number, that attention to detail takes the form of a retro-leaning 3-roll-2 button stance, hand-linked seams, and an enzyme-wash that lends the breezy hopsack fabric a sunny, lived-in charm. The Carry-On moniker is no mistake: Buck Mason designs its suits to retain their telltale patina regardless of where you're headed or how you get there. Shove the jacket into a duffel, overhead compartment, or the underside of a train seat—it'll emerge just as rugged and ready to boogie when you de-board.
Best Linen Suit for the Office: Drake’s Cotton-Linen Mk. I Games Suit
Fabric: 55% Cotton, 45% linen | Color: Navy | Sizes: 34-48
The single downside to linen's unimpeachable summer bona fides, as any buttoned-up menswear snob will tell you, is its propensity to wrinkle. (Feels sort of ageist, TBH, but we'll let it slide.) So if you're gearing up for an anxiety-inducing work presentation—or just wearing a suit to the office because hey, you read GQ—invest in a two-piece like Drake's', which blends its Italian-sourced linen with a supermajority of crisp, classic cotton. The British haberdasher's signature Games suit splits the difference with exquisite flair, yielding a less wrinkle-prone take on its purer flaxen counterparts. Factor in the hefty notch lapels and genteel 3-roll-2 button stance and you might as well promote yourself.
Best Linen Suit You're Going to See Everywhere: J.Crew Big-Fit Suit
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Beige white glen | Sizes: 34-50
A couple of years ago, J.Crew introduced the Kenmare suit, a major development in the mall brand renaissance and its latest bulwark in the tailoring arms race between its counterparts at Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch. The Kenmare was expressly designed for next-gen tailoring buffs—guys who suit up because they want to, not because occasion demands it—and it was looser, chiller, and generally bigger in every way than the brand's flagship Ludlow silhouette. In 2024, though, it's not quite big enough.
So just this month, J.Crew rolled out the bluntly-named Big-Fit suit, a worthy follow-up to its viral Giant chinos that takes the Kenmare's relaxed proportions to their logical conclusion. The first version comes rendered in a breezy, eggshell-hued glen plaid, the platonic color and pattern to harness the louche ease of the retailer's '90s-era catalogs. If J.Crew's track record is any indication, expect the Big-Fit suit to be just as ubiquitous as its others by this time next year—which means now's the moment to supersize your closet before the rest of the group chat catches up.
More Linen Suits We Love
Fabric: 57% Cotton, 23% viscose, 20% linen | Color: Brown, taupe | Sizes: 36-46
Abercrombie’s ludicrously affordable linen-blend suit isn’t quite Savile Row-level quality—few suits are. But before our mates across the pond get their starched briefs in a twist, consider the context it was designed for. As GQ’s Tyler Chin noted when the brand introduced its debut tailoring line, it’s no coincidence that it landed just as those RSVPs started piling up in your inbox. “When the vows are exchanged and the bubbly starts flowing,” Chin said then, “I’ll be sequestered by the bar, not even remotely stressed about spilling Aperol down the front of my $300 suit.”
Fabric: 57% Linen, 40% viscose, 3% elastane | Color: Navy | Sizes: S-XL
The easiest way to let everyone else at that gallery opening know you're wearing a suit because you want to? Buy one from Dries Van Noten, the soon-to-retire Belgian designer with a flair for eye-grabbing prints and left-of-center colors. His ultra-chill tailoring will look A1 with your slinkiest dress shirts—and even better with a soft, slouchy knit.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Tan/brown herringbone | Sizes: 36-42
Looking to upgrade your tired weekend standbys? In desperate need of a warm-weather-appropriate wedding ensemble that won't make you seem like a total snoozefest? Just want to ball out on a suit that says “I am the captain now”? This louche Noah two-piece will meet the job with a delirious amount of pizzazz.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Dark beige | Sizes: XS-XL
Evan Kinori's linen two-piece is the savvy sartorialist's answer to transitional weather. The jacket is cut loose and generous, guaranteed to keep you from sweating buckets come summer—but might look even better as a makeshift chore coat with a threadbare tee underneath. Wear the pants instead of jeans on your next run to the bodega and even the surly dude behind the cashier will appreciate the flex.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Light blue, stone, rust, forest | Sizes: 34-44
Too many men’s linen suits run the risk of looking overly casual (or overcompensate with a particularly structured fit). But red carpet mainstay Percival manages to split the difference, thanks to crisp notch lapels and a duo of patch pockets that’ll help you’ll nail the dress code for brunch—and the slew of summer weddings on your docket.
Fabric: 55% linen, 45% cotton | Color: Salvia | Sizes: 40-44
Like Todd Snyder’s swaggering Wythe suit, Massimo Alba’s weathered green riff borrows a conventionally cold-weather pattern—in this case, a subtle herringbone stripe—and thoroughly springifies it by ditching the worsted wool in favor of a made-in-Italy linen-cotton blend. Alba is a master of casual Italian style; even his suits skew more playboy than politician. There are plenty of reasons to pair this lived-in two-piece with nothing but a crochet vest and fisherman sandals, but its partially-lined construction and classic-leaning flourishes might convince you to throw on a tie for the sheer thrill of it.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Blue | Sizes: EU 46-56
If you always wondered how Italian drip gods manage to look so fly in the summer, we've got the answer: a suit exactly like this one. Brunello Cucinelli's subtly-textured linen option may seem laissez-faire in vibe, but to really capitalize on its pedigree, we'd recommend going the whole nine yards—pale blue shirt, dark knit tie, dress shoes shined to a mirror-like gleam.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Dark brown | Sizes: S-XL
British menswear legend Margarat Howell’s boxy, workwear-inflected suit isn't just relaxed for the sake of it—in tandem with a texture-rich linen fabric that's heavy on the laid-back charm, it helps make this suit one of the least fussy we've seen in a minute. With a plain white tee and eye-grabbing loafers (or a chambray shirt and canvas sneakers), it'll turn up the swank factor on even your most casual ensembles.
Fabric: 100% Linen | Color: Ivory, chocolate | Sizes: EU 44-54
Since 2014, Agyesh Madan and the next-gen tailoring experts at Stòffa have largely focused on one thing: the brand’s signature line of “soft suiting”, which merges Madan’s pedigree in the space—he cut his teeth at Isaia, the vaunted Neapolitan label—with a lifelong garmento’s understanding of what, exactly, his customers want. What Stòffa’s hyper-discerning customers want, it turns out, are suits unlike any other they’ve worn before. Like all of the brand’s relaxed tailoring, Stòffa’s creamy linen shirt jacket is cut, sewn, and finished at a workshop in Campania, Italy, and equipped with a litany of IYKYK sartorial flourishes. Oh, and if the fluttery, box-pleated shorts don’t quite do it for you, the brand uses the same fabric to make its just-as-exquisite trousers.
How We Tested
Linen suits are tricky to test firsthand—it's not always reasonable to assume they'll fit you perfectly right out of the hanging bag, and it's damn-near impossible to land on one version that works for every body type. So before we began whittling down the list of our favorites, we thought back to all the linen suits we've known and loved recently, and what, exactly, differentiated one flaxen number from the other.
The most important differentiator comes down to vibe. Are you looking for a linen suit you can reliably substitute for its wool counterparts when the subway is so swampy you're sweating before you hear “stand clear of the closing doors”? Or a linen suit you'll wear sporadically, to those frustratingly amorphous cocktail hours that demand more than a button-up and jeans? Or was your search for a linen suit catalyzed by the sheer number of RSVPs in your inbox—and your inability to weather a 2-hour beachside ceremony without shvitzing up a storm?
Whatever motives brought you here, you're in good company. Over the course of our months-long testing process—and countless debates on button stance, fabric composition, and lapel width—the suits above helped us soldier through every type of event imaginable in impeccable style. Along the way, we made note of each suit's upsides and downsides, reassessing and reorganizing our top contenders accordingly.
Based on those evaluations, we ran the numbers, collated the anecdotal evidence, and emerged with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best linen suits for men right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable go-tos to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs. Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there's bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ's testing process here.)
- Gerald Ortiz, GQ Style Commerce Writer
- Tyler Chin, GQ Associate Commerce Editor
- Avidan Grossman, GQ Senior Commerce Editor