A bit over a year ago I stopped wearing a tie to work, mostly because nobody else at work wears a tie.
When you wear ties, they can be the distinguishing feature in your work attire. When the tie is gone, it’s harder to get away with, for instance, wearing white shirts every day.
So I’ve bought a bunch of different coloured/striped/checked shirts. Stocktake sale time is a good time to stock up. Van Heusen do quite a nice “European” cut, which is a bit slimmer than their normal “classic” slobby look, but not so slim every belly bulge shows.
I’ve got mostly blues, I have to admit, though recently I’ve branched into a few other colours; for instance a couple of hopefully-not-too-dull greys, one in lavender, one that is white with stripes of pink and a couple of other colours. Groovy.
6 replies on “Shirts”
I have discovered a bacteria which eats cotton. In the space of a few weeks, almost every cotton shirt I own has literally disintegrated. T-shirts, business shirts, flannelette shirts, polo shirts.
So watch out. I’d go with synthetics.
That’s a good point – I have around three times as many shirts as I did in my tie wearing days, and still feel that’s not enough to look different. Ties did make that a he’ll of a lot easier.
I’m a fan of Van Heusen too. Their shirts take less ironing.
I buy mine from Harris Scarfe when they are on 1/2 price specials (which they regularly are).
+1 to Van Heusen. Like Roger says, they’re easy to iron, and they’re also usually on sale somewhere.
Your shirt rail looks very similar to mine, though I’m managing to cycle through just three a week as I work from home one day a week and it’s semi-casual Friday (no jeans or tees. Often it’s easier to go with the suit and shirt anyway).
Unfortunately I am borderline Euro-fit on a good day and so have some of the classics. Not sure I agree with the “sloppy look” definition of the latter, but agree they don’t hang as well.
T. M. Lewin. I loved them when I lived in the UK. You can get them here in Aus now – usually 4 for $200 (was 4 for 100GBP – so a bit of the Aus import markup) – but classic slim fit, modern shirts, big selection. Buy them with French Cuffs and start buying cuff links to replace your ties.
My husband loves Van Heusen shirts, especially the Euro fit, and has replaced ties with a huge collection of cufflinks (all off eBay!) but the only problem is I find it hard to find the french cuff shirts in Euro fit. They are so hard to find. Myer only has a few and he already has all the colours they have available… can anyone help? ;)