Guide to buy men's dress shirts
Time and again, almost every men style blog, stylist and celebrity has emphasized the importance of suits in a man’s dressing. Buying the right suits, dress shirts and dress pants is a very important part of men’s shopping because these are not like t-shirts that you can discard after a couple of uses. It is a long term investment; so make it right! Now the shirt you wear under your suit can either make your suit look fantastic or it can make it look drab. This is a timeless guide to buy men’s dress shirts that suit your suits.
While there are various categories of dress shirts you can buy but broadly, a proper dress shirt is a button-up shirt with a collar, long sleeves, and wrist cuffs. It is usually made from cotton fabrics woven and dyed into different subtle patterns and colors. In order to buy the right dress shirts for yourself, you would want to take the help of these basic categories of dress shirts:
Fit
This is an obvious but equally important factor in buying a great dress shirt. Ideally, you should know your measurements—neck size and arm length, and buy a shirt accordingly. If you have a lean body, go for a slim fit shirt. Otherwise a classic fit should do well. If you are skinny, go for extra-slim or skinny fit shirts.
Make sure you can comfortably fit one finger between the collar and your neck. If two fingers fit, the collar's a little too big. The sleeves shouldn’t be too long or too short. When unbuttoned, the cuffs should reach just past your wrists. Buy a shirt that closely fits your torso and make sure it doesn’t give the ballooning look with billowy folds above your pants.
Fabric
A good dress shirt has to be cotton and you should avoid polyester shirts. Egyptian cotton is a superior option for fabric composition. Cotton is woven in different ways to create various nuanced fabrics and the popular ones you can choose from are:
Oxford — a simple, sturdy weave with light bumps in its surface
Pinpoint or royal oxford — a smoother, lighter and expensive oxford
Poplin — a smooth surface with a light, loose weave; if you can’t decide, go with poplin.
Twill/Herringbone — a textured weave with distinct “V” shapes (herringbone) or diagonal ribbed texture (twill)
Linen – linen fabric is light, cool and more relaxed, ideal for warmer weather.
You can enquire about your shirt fabric from your stylist or retailer.
Collar
While there are innumerable types of shirt collars out there, you only need to know the important ones:
Button-down — sturdy, versatile, timeless and casual; ideal for business casual wear
Straight Point — a classic American-style turndown shirt collar; it is an old-school collar which is minimal
Spread — a wider-spread point collar, with the collar points more than 90 degrees apart from each other
Semispread - Perfectly balanced. Not too wide or narrow. This is the collar you should get if you’re unable to decide. It works with every kind of suit, every kind of tie. You can't go wrong with this.
Cuff
Know the kind of cuff you want from the popular types:
Single barrel — a simple and common kind with a buttoning cuff
Double barrel — a dressier option with two buttons
French — the most elegant one in the lot, French cuff is a doubled-over style cuff sealed with cufflinks rather than a button. Amedeo Exclusive specializes in reversible French cuffs with a large variety of exquisite patterns.
To buy great-looking dress shirts from our wide variety of patterns, click here.
1 comment
Great information. I love Amedeo shirts as you guys definitely are doing it right with the shirts. I have bought a few of them and keep checking frequently for new styles so I can buy more! Thanks for being awesome!