Navy is the colour that makes a polo shirt work. Not white, which marks immediately. Not black, which flattens everything. Navy sits in a register that reads as considered without trying too hard, and it earns its keep across a genuinely wide range of situations. Weekend lunch, a smart casual office, a summer evening where a shirt feels like too much and a t-shirt feels like too little. The polo handles all of it.

What we have been looking at specifically is fabric and collar behaviour. A polo collar that curls after two washes is not a polo worth owning. Piqué cotton with the right weight holds its shape, breathes properly, and looks better with wear rather than worse. Fit matters too. Too boxy and it looks like an afterthought. Too fitted and it loses the ease that makes a polo worth reaching for.

These are the navy polos that have their priorities in the right order.