The washed denim shirt is a universally stylish thing. With roots going back to the American West and the rugged men who not only tamed it, but worked hard to build the industrial society we live in today, it communicates strength, resilience, and steely resolve. Much like the Oxford cloth button down, it’s been embraced the world over, not just the United States. As it’s been reinterpreted over the decades by different movements and cultures, the aesthetic changes, but those underlying sensibilities remain.
Much like the denim shirt it’s now selling, Besnard has a long history as well. After establishing his tailoring house in The Hague (La Haye) at 28 years old in 1878, Albert Besnard fashioned for himself a highly successful career dressing courtiers and those running in diplomatic circles. Sadly, with no one trained to succeed him, his business closed after four decades.
Today, his great-great-grandson Victor has resurrected the Besnard name. With his first collection of shirts—and now trousers—his mission is to “offer a complete wardrobe of timeless menswear of exceptional quality.” Several weeks ago, he reached out to me and asked if I’d be willing to give my thoughts on his denim shirt, and I agreed. The following are my thoughts (note: for information about my policy regarding free products, please see here. TL;DR: I don’t accept free stuff in exchange for positive coverage, and offer my unvarnished opinion in reviews).
For its first collection of shirts, Besnard has a small selection of the essentials: spread-collar white business shirts, oxford cloth button-downs in white, blue and university stripe, and chambray and denim shirts in light and medium wash. I chose the “bleach” wash denim.
The construction and fabric of the shirt are excellent to my eye and check all the boxes you’d expect: single-needle construction, high-quality fabric (in this case, from Japanese denim mill Kaihara, famous worldwide for its denim), Australian mother of pearl buttons.
But it’s the design that’s of particular importance to me. Foremost is the collar. It’s a button-down collar with a generous roll, with a virtually un-detectable lining, and with an expression that’s more spread than pointed. Translation: it looks amazing with or without a tie. The collar design looks pretty much like the Kamakura button-down collar, which is one of my all-time favorites (I’ve written about my preference for button-down collars with a spread expression as opposed to point here).
Thankfully, Victor has chosen to make this shirt with a properly wide front placket (1.5 inches; many shirts have only 1.25 inch wide plackets). Wide by European standards, it’s exactly right for a button-down shirt. I cannot stand narrow plackets. I’d all but written off Proper Cloth for years until they introduced a wide (read: normal-width) placket. I was bitterly angry when I ordered a blue OCBD from Brooks Brothers three weeks ago to discover it has a narrow placket, and returned the shirt. So to see a shirt from Europe with a classic placket brings me much joy. Victor describes something that makes the placket extra cool, too: “It was made in the traditional way, using a chain stitch on the edges, which is the same stitch that can be found on the hems of (proper selvedge) jeans. As a result, the placket ages similar to the hems of a pair of raw jeans (but less roping due to the lighter weight of the fabric).”
Another cool design detail that I really like is the pleating at the sleeve cuffs. Most shirts have just a few pleats (4 being the most, space evenly around the circumference), which is how they taper the sleeve from its widest point at the armhole down to its narrowest, at the wrist. Brooks Brothers famously has 6 or 7 micro-pleats, which I’ve always loved. I appreciate Besnard’s larger but numerous pleats for the same reason I appreciate Brooks’s: for its uniqueness as well as its aesthetics. It also accomplishes something from a fit perspective: it allows the elbow and forearm to be wider and more comfortable, with a narrower cuff. That doesn’t seem like particularly unique, but often in ready-to-wear shirts you see one of two things: a baggy sleeve that tapers down to a loose cuff, or a slim sleeve that doesn’t have enough room in the forearm, endangering premature elbow blow-outs.
I own one other denim shirt, from Proper Cloth, and it’s a heavy weight denim. By contrast, this fabric is lightweight. Which is great, because it’ll wear much more comfortably in the hot months.
Fit is unique to every person, so check out the measurements on the site when you order. I’d describe it as a contemporary fit—not slim but not loose and baggy either. Sadly for me, the sleeve length on my standard size was too short. Victor swapped it out for me for the next size up, and it works, but the collar is too big, so I can’t wear it with a tie, and the fit went from basically perfect in the shoulders and body to looser than I’d prefer. But those aspects are far more workable than short sleeves. Given that I’m unlikely to wear this shirt with a tie, the collar looseness is workable, too. But it’s undeniable the shirt is a disappointment for me from this perspective.
Besnard’s denim and chambray shirts are a thumbs up from me. Thinking about the various companies making washed denim shirts, the price point here is just right given the quality of the materials, make, and the design. You get a great product for the price.
Shop the Look
Barbour Ashby coat [or its parent, with a traditional fit, the Bedale]
Brown tweed sport coat [similar 1, similar 2]
Sid Mashburn natural denim [budget option: J.Crew]
Meermin snuff suede chukkas and belt [alternative from Spier & Mackay]
(Help support this site! If you buy stuff through my links, your clicks and purchases earn me a commission from many of the retailers I feature, and it helps me sustain this site—as well as my menswear habit ;-) Thanks!)
Personally I think any brand send free stuff to bloggers/youtubers really cheapens itself and would never consider buying.