Bold Plumage

The sporting male, thanks to his mate, gets bolder every season, and now he's breaking into print in the brightest assortment of sports shirts to appear since Harry Truman's salad-shirt days. After a 10-year hiatus, the patterned shirt is back, with ships and sails and hunting dogs, old guns, sea chanteys and treasure maps stealing the quieter thunder of such new traditionals as madrases, stripes and foulards. These new prints spring predominantly from the sporting scene. Many have been inspired by the decorator fabrics found in a man's den. All of them are in more careful control of taste than the last batch of flora and fauna that sprouted on sports shirts. The examples shown here were photographed at Nassau's Speed Week. Teamed with a new batch of trousers, in colors ranging from melon red to chrome yellow ($13.50, in poplin, $17.50 in Orion and cotton flannel, Brooks Brothers), they forecast that men this summer will present a bolder front on the sporting scene.

Help! fire! shirt ($4, by Tammis Keefe for Marlboro) is worn by Sports Car Driver Ted Boynton, taking the sun with Rosa Kauth at Nassau's Pilot House.

Working dog printed silk shirt ($20, Tillett), worn here by Ted Boynton, is one of a collection of Tillett sporting prints.

Sunbathers enliven a silk shirt ($20, Ramey) worn here by Bruce Parker, Nassau's water-skiing and skin-diving expert.

Sailboat print, black on red ($6, McGregor), is worn with white flannels by Bob Symonette, owner of Nassau Yacht Haven.

Sea Chantey and 19th century prints cover a mustard-yellow shirt ($13, Ramey) worn by Chuck Hassan, Cleveland sports car importer.

Gun-bearing shirt ($22.50, Peerless) is sported by Campbell Smidt of Washington, D.C., chatting with Mrs. Dave Darran at the Royal Victoria's new poolside bar.

Crackle print with decorative medallions, orange on white, is an example of neat patterning ($15, Izod).

SEVEN PHOTOS

NORMAND MENARD