If there's one character whose bold looks on Grace and Frankie steal not only the spotlight but our hearts, it's not block colour queen Brianna, it's not starched collar monarch Grace, and it's not goddess of layering Frankie.
It's Sol Bergstein, people.
Over the course of Grace and Frankie's seven seasons on Netflix, Sam Waterston boldly wheels out patterns of varying intensities in Sol's signature shirts, which offset husband Robert's unshakeable love of navy and grey. Thanks to series costume designer Allyson B. Fanger, we've enjoyed years of Sol's sartorial savvy while he frets over something or other, gives one hell of a pep talk emblazoned in clashing patterns, or plays mediator yet again in a breezy linen number.
Because his fashion sense deserves recognition dammit, here's a definitive ranking of Sol's 20 best shirts from Grace and Frankie. I've left out most of Sol's linen shirts because they're way too easy and abundant, as well as his office shirts because they're not worthy of the loud and proud Sol style we love.
And if I've missed one of your favourites (Sol wears something like 100 shirts, cardigans, and t-shirts in the show), I'm sorry I can't hear you over his second best shirt.
20. Season 6, Episode 13
This one gets points for matching Robert's signature block colour, the deck chairs, and the feeling that your whole house just got flooded by a toilet prototype made by your exes.
19. Season 6, Episode 5
Now we're into it. The bird! The button seam! The embossed fabric! The double hug! Sol needs all the support he can get going through this episode, telling his family about his health, so if panels of cranes in flight bring him any comfort, by all means.
18. Season 5, Episode 7
As Sol tries to convince Robert that his sleep apnea machine "isn't that bad," he's wearing this stunning panelled landscape, possibly to distract his husband from the fact that the machine is "blowing his face off his face." It's a good attempt!
17. Season 6, Episode 3
I'm always going to gravitate toward black shirts in my own wardrobe but it's a little austere for Sol to go the whole thing, so those little flourishes work wonders. See also, this similar shirt:
Sol breaks this out for game night with the family, and there's enough breeze in this get-up to school Robert, Brianna, and Mallory with Bud and Coyote in Celebrity by cheating with their own code.
16. Season 3, Episode 2
Robert and Sol chuck a sick day to unpack boxes in their new smart home, they're playing with their sound system that isolates music in different rooms. While Robert cranks up Gilbert and Sullivan, Sol dances around to Little Richard, in a palm tree patterned number made for throwing all those angular shapes.
15. Season 3, Episode 5
There are about 10 patterns going on here and I love it. Sol busts out this overtly patterned autumnal delight when he's just making dinner at home, but it becomes the perfect outfit to, I don't know, head over to Grace and Frankie's house to mediate the dynamic duo's argument about guns in the house.
14. Season 6, Episode 1
There are about 20 patterns going on here, and a dragon, and I love it. The Season 6 return saw Sol go bold and bright to toast the newlyweds: Grace and Nick (surprise!). Grace meets Sol on the plane of ostentatious prints in this scene, but Sol could never come close to having such a powerfully starched collar.
13. Season 1, Episode 11
If you're going to have an argument, have it in this shirt.
12. Season 4, Episode 9
When Sol's shirts come with a bird/flower scene, an embossed fabric, and an unexpected shade like this deep green, we're all in. It's another shirt that sits pretty during tension between Sol and Robert, and though it's upstaged in scenes by Joan-Margaret's spectacular autumn leaves jacket and koi brooch, it's makes a winning argument for us.
11. Season 3, Episode 13
Dress each day like you'll get arrested for peacefully protesting against bagel-making bigots.
10. Season 6, Episode 13
*extremely AC/DC voice* If you want blood, you got it. Sol gives Robert a taste of his own medicine by spending a huge amount of money on something without chatting it through first. Revenge purchases is the order of the day, and so is this shirt, that must be worn with a leather jacket and a baaaad attitude.
9. Season 6, Episode 10
It's a fundraiser for the New Lear theatre, so Sol breaks out the big, bright guns in this one. Unfortunately it's not enough to get them over the line due to a big-hearted move, but the real winner of the day was our own eyes.
8. Season 5, Episode 11
Sol sets rehearsal ablaze by giving Peter? a note? in this excellent splotchy shirt. I don't know whether it's watching Sol stand up to Robert's tyrannical director that makes the colours pop, but THEY POP.
7. Season 1, Episode 9 and Season 2, Episode 4
Ahhh, the Columbia fishing shirt, covered in a fishing-related pattern of tunny fish, bluefin tuna, helms, and propellers. Do we ever see Sol fishing in the show? No. Does it matter? No! The shirt appears in Season 1 and 2, because once isn't enough to really study every picture on this shirt.
6. Season 4, Episode 3
There's so much going on here, yet all in perfect harmony. Those stripes! Sol wears this kind of art on a regular night at home, always ready to host an emergency legal consultation about a handwritten love letter over coffee. He breaks it out again in Season 6, Episode 4, when he's dealing with his own crisis.
5. Season 1, Episode 13
It's the shirt Sol makes some questionable choices in. Reminiscing with Frankie while packing up their house in this elegant patterned number? Formula for adulterous chaos.
4. Season 5, Episode 9
I'm sorry but this is a masterpiece. The colour palette, the floaty fabric, the bold collar, the butterflies dancing. It's the perfect look for an allergy-friendly food tasting for Bud and Allison's wedding, why not? But folks, Sol's kinda done people-pleasing in this episode and he's got the shirt to prove it: "I'm not impossible, I'm just evolving! And I like the new me. The new me gets results!" Friend, yes.
3. Season 7, Episode 3
This is one of the best shirts to ever be worn on TV, so it's in the top three. An undulating landscape of bright, bold colour with patterns that clash as much as Sol and Robert living in the beach house with Grace and Frankie while their house is being repaired post toilet flood. As tensions rise during Wiffle Waffle brunch, so does the tide on this shirt.
2. Season 5, Episode 8
"Oh yay, Sol's here!"
"Yay! His shirt is screaming at us!"
It just misses out on the top spot, but this absolute stunner of a shirt upstages Robert's rehearsal at home, and frankly deserves to interrupt. The brightly hued heaps of hibiscus and birds of paradise. The palm-fronted mountain sunset scenes. That audacious black and red outline. A true showstopper, only to be beaten by one iconic look...
1. Season 6, Episode 9
The paint swatch shirt. It's everything. It is art. It's a pattern of art supplies. It's available for me to purchase for $179.00 and live my people-pleasing life foraging for hickory wood on the suburban streets of Los Angeles, co-hosting drinkies, and rescuing my ex-wife from under her dining table every time there's an earth tremor.
Raise a Pink Squirrel to the supreme shirt of all Sol shirts, long may it reign.
Grace and Frankie is now streaming on Netflix.
