Here’s my conundrum: my preferred basic, essential dress shirt is a solid white or solid pale blue slim-fit shirt with a 3″ semi-spread collar, French cuffs, a 15.5″ neck and a 35″ collar in regular cotton poplin for under $80 or so.
One would think that such a shirt would be easy to find. Basic and uncomplicated, right? Au contraire, mon frere.
I’m not very confident with color, but I am improving. That said, my favorite shirt to wear is the great white dress shirt. With companies like Brooks Brothers and Charles Tyrwhitt killing real cotton shirts and replacing them with Stepford Shirts made with toxic, formaldehyde-soaked, no-iron/wrinkle-free cotton, it’s become very difficult to find real, handsome, well-made and affordable cotton dress shirts without going custom.