The shirt used to come with instructions.
You wore one to work. You wore one to dinner. You wore one under a suit. If things got particularly formal, you added a tie and spent the evening wondering why the collar was slowly strangling you. Then, at some point, we decided shirts were either too formal or too much effort and the beloved T-shirt won.
However, that seems to be changing.
The interesting thing about the shirt now is that it doesn't really have a job description anymore. A good one can be worn buttoned with tailored trousers, thrown open over a T-shirt, tucked into jeans, worn loose with shorts or put underneath a jacket when the occasion calls for it. It can dress you up without making you look dressed up.
I don't wear shirts as it currently stands, but I want to. With men's clothing moving towards looser proportions, softer construction and clothes that don't insist on being worn in only one particular way, the shirt is slowly adapting to fit my wardrobe and my approach to clothing. The current version is also considerably less precious and the best ones look better when they've been lived in for a while.
And if we're talking about shirts like that, I'm particularly interested in linen.
There is something in a good linen shirt that gets the balance right. It has enough structure to make an outfit feel considered, but enough informality to throw it on with shorts and forget about it. It creases, it breathes, it gets better with wear and, unlike the old idea of a “smart shirt”, it doesn't seem to mind being taken somewhere.
So, rather than looking at every shirt under the sun, we've picked three linen versions worth knowing. One Irish. One Italian. One British.
STABLE
For the Irish version, we'd start here.
STABLE's men's linen shirt collection is refreshingly small. There are five colours: white, denim blue, dusty pink, moss green and turquoise. Each is made from 100% Irish linen, with the current shirts priced at €180.
The White Irish Linen Shirt is the one we'd pick.
Not because white is revolutionary, but because it is almost impossible to get bored of. STABLE describes it as a loose-fit, one-for-all shirt, made using linen developed with Irish weaver Emblem Weavers. It has a slightly stiffened collar, chest pocket and the small orange buttonhole detail that has become part of the STABLE identity.
Luca Faloni
For the Italian version, Luca Faloni makes a very good case. The Portofino Shirt is made from 100% Italian linen and produced in Northern Italy. It comes in regular and slim fits, with a one-piece collar, mother-of-pearl buttons and a rounded hem. The collar is the detail worth noticing. It gives the shirt enough structure to work with trousers or underneath a jacket, but worn open it immediately becomes more relaxed.
Sunspel
Then there is Sunspel. The British brand's men's linen shirt is made from 100% extra-fine linen sourced from an Italian mill, then washed to give it a softer feel. It has a regular fit and shell buttons. What makes it useful is the simplicity. It is designed to work on its own or open over a T-shirt, which is exactly how we think a modern linen shirt should behave.
There is also a short-sleeve version, but we'd take the long sleeve. Roll them up when it gets warm. Leave them down when the evening cools off. It gives you more options without adding another shirt to the wardrobe.
Three shirts, one idea
What makes these three interesting isn't that they're radically different. It's that they're not. All three understand the same basic idea: a shirt doesn't have to announce the occasion.
A good linen shirt can take you from lunch to dinner, from the beach to a bar, from shorts to trousers without requiring an outfit change halfway through the day. And perhaps that is why the shirt feels relevant again.
Men's clothing has spent years trying to make everything more technical, more fitted and more complicated. The current shift feels like a correction. Clothes are getting roomier, fabrics are becoming more natural and the distinction between dressed and casual is becoming less important.
The shirt sits right in the middle of that. No tie required.
