Shirt Placket or No Shirt Placket?
Dress shirts are made with a placket or without. I prefer the former.
My First Proper Cloth Experience
In my new search for a nice dress shirt with unfused collars, unfused cuffs and a placket, I think I've found a solution.
For the Love of Broadcloth
The myriad of dress shirt fabric options can be overwhelming. Cotton broadcloth ticks all the boxes for me.
My Favorite Shirt Company Killed the Placket
When a company you like makes a product you love, and then changes the product, it's a boner killer.
The Wonder of Elastic Arm Bands
In a perfect wardrobe, all the shirts and jackets have a perfect sleeve length that reveal that ideal one-quarter to one-half inch of shirt cuff. But if you haven’t brought the shirts to the tailor, or if the shirt is new and hasn’t shrunk to size yet, there is a solution to “shortening” shirt sleeves: elastic arm bands.
Suitsupply Summer Sale
A nice last-chance blowout on some stunning spring/summer items from one of the best resources for style-conscious men on a budget.
In Praise of the Unfused Dress Shirt Collar
One of my pet peeves with the average dress shirt is the fused collar. A fused collar is one that undergoes a high heat process that fuses multiple layers of fabric together, producing a collar that looks and feels perpetually starched, whether it’s been ironed or not. It’s fine, and I tolerate it. But I’ve grown to appreciate (and even favor) a non-fused collar. It’s not so stiff looking, lending a more relaxed, confident and cooler nonchalance to an otherwise crisp look.
The Sartorial Illiteracy of the American Television Host
It’s a good bet that a lot of American men get their cues about wearing suits from television. Unfortunately, most TV personalities wear their suits poorly, spreading bad information to the masses.
Left to their own devices, male on-camera personalities would likely make even bigger sartorial mistakes than they already do. It’s not totally their fault. Their main job is to be informed, intelligent, engaging and entertaining, which is a genuinely difficult full-time job. Other than a few hosts who actually have a sense of style and a knowledge of what to wear and how to wear it, these men need help. To get dressed appropriately and look right, they retain the services of a stylist, designer or dresser whose job can range from advising and consulting to an all-out dictation of what otherwise clueless talent should wear. This is where the problem lives.
My Dress Shirt Solutions
Until years ago, my dress shirts were almost exclusively from Brooks Brothers. Aside from their long (and now lost) heritage with dress shirts, they had a great fit and wonderful fabric until they went down the no-iron/wrinkle-free rabbit hole. Wrinkle-free is the crystal meth of menswear. Since my distaste for the substandard, formaldehyde-soaked, toxic, no-iron phenomenon is no secret, even earning me a quote in the Wall Street Journal, Brooks Brothers completely lost my business.
My preferred collar and cuff combination for dress shirts is a semi-spread collar with French cuffs. Same with my formal shirts. For handsome, well-made, affordable dress shirts, where to go?
A Reader Asks: How to Get Rid of Pit Stains?
A reader named Barry asked: Any advice on getting rid of underarm perspiration stains from white and blue cotton shirts? Thank you.
This is a common one and easily resolved with a few simple steps. It’s important to know that pit stains are not caused by perspiration but by the aluminum in antiperspirant. In the interest of prevention, the first thing to do is to stop using antiperspirant that contains aluminum and switch to a deodorant that doesn’t.