I’m a sucker for a reverse-stripe shirt (so named because it swaps the normal white background with a narrow colored stripe so the ground is the color and the narrower stripe is white), and Spier & Mackay finally has a really good and proper Oxford cloth button down for sale. Last year’s wasn’t quite perfect (the white stripe was a bit too narrow, and their off-the-rack make of the shirt had a narrow placket).
The ready-to-wear version of this year’s shirt is a great design—it uses the larger Italian button-down collar (C22, so not the biggest one they make but second-biggest), with the classic wide placket, with no back pleat. So it’s a good, contemporary take on the OCBD.
The fabric is also available in their custom shirt maker for $69 (fabric code RY-2600-MTM, I have no idea how to link to it so just search ‘reverse stripe’ in their fabric selector and it’ll come up). This is where you could decide to make the shirt into a cutaway collar variation, or if you just need custom to fit you well.
Here’s my guide to getting the most out of Spier’s custom shirt program.
In case you’re interested, I plan to order a custom make of this shirt, and here’s how I plan to make it:
- C23 Large Italian Button-Down
- Conical cuff
- Standard front placket
- Side pleats on the back
- Diamond pocket
- 1/4-inch stitching
- Shell buttons
- In the comments I will specify: Lightest unfused interlining in collar, placket and cuffs.
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