The Best Quarter-Zip Sweaters for Men in 2026, From the Office to the Weekend

The cheapest thing here that's unambiguously a sweater. Cotton at a midweight gauge, a stand collar that holds its shape, and ribbing at the neck, cuffs and hem so it doesn't go shapeless after a month. It's the piece to buy if you want to find out whether you like wearing a quarter-zip before you spend real money, and it machine washes, which none of the wool in this section does.

Cashmere is one of the few places where a spec sheet tells you something real, and Quince publishes theirs: 15.8 to 16.2 micron fiber at a 12-gauge knit. Lower micron means a finer, softer, less itchy fiber, and anything under about 16.5 is genuinely good cashmere. Brooks Brothers will sell you a three-ply cashmere quarter-zip for $648. This is $105 and the fiber isn't the reason for the gap.

The fit problem in this category is specific and nobody addresses it: quarter-zips are cut straight, so a man with a chest and shoulders buys up for the shoulders and ends up with a tent around the waist. State and Liberty cuts the opposite way, with room through the chest and shoulders and a real taper below. The 5% spandex does the rest. It's the only genuinely athletic-cut knit quarter-zip we could verify anywhere.

This is the office answer, and the reason is the yarn rather than the label. Brooks Brothers names its mill, Tollegno 1900 in Piedmont, which is the kind of thing a brand only does when the yarn is worth naming. Merino regulates temperature in a way cotton doesn't, so it works in a building where the thermostat is a rumor. Seven colors, and the Big and Tall range goes to 4X and 4X Tall, though it drops to three colors when it does.

The most expensive piece on this page is also the easiest one to live with, which isn't how any of this is supposed to work. Sunspel treats the yarn so the finished sweater machine washes at 30C without shrinking. Everything else in this section, including the $278 Todd Snyder and the $198 Brooks Brothers, is hand wash or dry clean. Nineteen micron extra-fine merino, spun in Piedmont, knitted in Portugal, eight colors.

A shoulder-season layer rather than a warmth layer, and it's honest about that. The fabric is perforated jersey mesh, so it breathes instead of trapping, and the sleeves are cut all the way to the collar with seamless underarms so a golf swing doesn't drag the whole garment with it. Buy it for 55 degrees and sunshine, not for 38 and wind.

The only piece on this page that publishes its zip length, and at 10 in it's the longest one here by a distance. That matters more than it sounds, because a long zip is a thermostat. Open it walking uphill, close it at the top. Midweight merino at 250 g handles odor the way synthetics can't, flatlock seams and offset shoulder seams keep it from chafing under a pack, and the size chart goes to 6 ft 5 in.

UPF 50 and a wind flap behind the placket, which is a combination almost nothing else at this price bothers with. The flap is the detail worth caring about, because the zip line is where the wind actually gets in on a course with no trees. Johnnie-O pitches it for the office as well as the round, and the plain colorways hold that up better than most golf brands manage.

The Perth is the piece that made Peter Millar a default in golf, and the reason is that it doesn't look like golf. Stretch French terry has a dry, matte surface rather than the shine most performance knits have, and the mock collar with banded cuffs and hem gives it the outline of a sweater. Four-way stretch, wicking, machine wash and tumble dry. It's the one on this list you could wear straight from the course to lunch.

The only pick here with zip pockets and a shell that actually fights weather, which makes it less a sweater than a very soft windbreaker. Lined with Vuori's Strato fabric, so it holds warmth without bulk, and the outer sheds a light shower and cuts wind. The cut is deliberately oversized, which reads current and will annoy anyone who wants a trim line.

Cotton-led fleece with a peached face and a brushed back, which is the construction that separates a sweatshirt you keep from one that pills into a dishrag. Mostly cotton rather than mostly polyester, so it breathes and it doesn't hold smell. At this price it's the obvious answer to the question of what to wear on a Saturday, and there's nothing on this page it needs to apologize to.

The tall answer, and a rare one. Most brands treat tall as an afterthought or skip it, and L.L.Bean runs the full S to XXXL range in both Regular and Tall on this one piece. Waffle knit gives it texture and a bit of loft without weight, and the traditional fit is cut relaxed through the chest, sleeve and waist, which is the right call when the problem you're solving is length.

French terry with welt pockets, which almost no terry quarter-zip bothers to include and which is the entire reason this one gets worn more than the others in the drawer. Cotton-led with enough polyester to keep its shape and four-way stretch so it moves. This is the athleisure end of the category that Alo and Vuori have been pulling the quarter-zip toward, and it's the most honest version of it.

The only funnel neck on the page, and the reason to care is that a funnel stands up on its own instead of collapsing the moment you unzip it. Wool fleece rather than poly fleece, milled in Italy, with a cotton lining against the skin, so it has weight and body that a brushed-back sweatshirt simply doesn't. It's the one in this section you can wear over a shirt without it looking like you gave up.