On the evening of a private view or a summer dinner, one almost always ends up hanging one’s jacket over the back of a chair. All that remains is a shirt, a pair of trousers and a few details, and the look of the outfit rests on them alone.
Long relegated to the rank of underwear, the shirt is now readily worn on its own, and a few well-judged pairings are enough to do away with the suit entirely.
With pleated trousers, rigour without the jacket
This is the pairing closest to the suit, and paradoxically the most demanding. With no jacket to structure the shoulders, everything rests on a well-cut shirt: shoulder seams sitting exactly at the edge of the shoulder, sleeves that end at the base of the hand, tails long enough to stay tucked in when one raises the arms. Tucked into trousers in grey flannel or cool wool, a white or pale blue poplin makes for an outfit of great sobriety, completed by a smooth leather belt and matching loafers.
The Musée de la Chemiserie in Argenton-sur-Creuse notes, moreover, that the shirt has evolved over the centuries “to become today a garment that is meant to be seen”. Worn alone, it therefore deserves the same care as a jacket: a crisp collar, pressed cuffs, no wardrobe crease down the front.
With raw denim, a shirt with texture
With jeans, it is better to choose a fabric with some texture. A button-down oxford, white or sky blue, has exactly the right texture against denim cloth, without ever looking overdressed. The sleeves are rolled twice, above the wrist, and one stays in the same register for shoes: suede boots or derbies with a thick sole.
One rule only: avoid two identical blues, since a shirt and jeans of the same shade quickly blur together from a few metres away.
Under knitwear, the collar on show
In the mid-season, the shirt slips readily under a crew-neck sweater or a fine cardigan, in merino or cotton. Only the collar and a few millimetres of cuff show: enough to dress a knit that, on its own, would look too plain.
The choice of collar matters more here than the choice of fabric: an Italian collar or a button-down collar holds better under the neckline of a sweater than a soft collar, which tends to collapse.
Open, like an overshirt
The last freedom, and the most summery: wearing the shirt fully open, over a thick white T-shirt. Linen lends itself naturally to this, as does flannel from autumn onwards, and the outfit takes on a nonchalant air that has nothing to do with the office wardrobe.
The tails stay loose, the sleeves slightly rolled, and a cut a little fuller than usual lets the fabric fall without pulling at the shoulders.
Also on Luxsure: AMBUSH imagines a wardrobe for urban wandering · 5000 spring-summer 2027: Taylor Thompson makes exile a grammar · Alberto Zambelli builds a room around the body · Roberto Baggio in the C.P. Company archives, a film rather than a campaign
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