Just recently I have started thinking more critically about the shirt collars I wear. One adage I learned about collars a little over a decade ago was from the press run-up to the release of the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. “A collar should frame your face,” someone said at the time, and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick chose shirt collars for the characters that communicated their personality, their position of power within the financial system, but also were flattering to them as individuals. Look at the poster for the film and you can see the dramatic, larger than life collar on Michael Douglas’ character (Gordon Gekko, the icon of 1980s style the same costume designer created in that era), and the smaller but still commanding collar on Shia Labeouf’s character.
I have always loved Labeouf’s collar in that image. But the funny thing is that none of my shirts have collars like that. Only a few years after that movie’s release, I went from wanting the strong-shouldered, structured look to jumping on the soft Neapolitan train. Along with that, I came to love tall, Italian-style cutaway collars.
But now I’m rethinking that. Cutaways can look so severe when buttoned up with a tie. They don’t frame the face so much as cut your neck in half. See this photo below. It looks great, but in terms of framing the face, it’s not really doing that so much as just looking cool on its own terms.
So I gave a shirt with a medium spread collar from Spier & Mackay a try this season. It’s one of the collars you can normally only get in their made-to-measure program called, simply, “Italian Spread” (C13). It doesn’t have a super tall collar band nor extra-long collar points, which makes it a bit more palatable for a mainstream guy. Despite that, I’m loving the way it frames my face when buttoned up with a tie. In their made to measure system, there is a larger version of the same collar: taller band with longer points but the same spread width (Large Italian Spread, C19). I’m thinking of making up a white poplin shirt with that collar to be my go-to white shirt, and if I like it, trying it on other fabrics. Once I do and experiment with the process a bit, I’ll write about my results.
Worn open collar, the shirt still looks great, but that’s where I still prefer the cutaway (and where that extra collar band height makes a difference). To me it feels a little extra cool, a little more masculine; like something a stylish older Italian man would wear with his dark navy suit.
This is another area where you need to try out different collar types and determine what looks best and what you like the most on yourself. Although I do think this kind of mid-spread shape is flattering on every man—the differences will come in point length and band height.
What is your favorite collar style? And separately, perhaps, what collar style do you find flatters you the most when you wear it buttoned up? I’m interested to know what others have found to be their favorite collars ever.
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