What is a shirt?

The Oxford Dictionary defines a shirt as “a piece of clothing worn on the upper part of the body, made of light cloth, with sleeves and usually a collar and buttons down the front.”  

They were originally used to make sure a person’s real clothing wasn’t touching our disgusting human bodies. Now remember, this was in the early 1700s, so who knows what state of cleanliness the human body was in on a daily basis. The simple design was made to be comfortable and practical, not stylish, because it would barely be seen. It wasn’t until around 100 years later that they started to be recognized as a staple in the gentleman's wardrobe, able to be worn on its own. People were now not only looking at collars, they were looking at the whole thing, which made people start paying attention to the finer details. However, you can only change a shirt’s styling so much, and one of the main ways is to alter the collar.     

Some of the most common collar styles are as follows:

Band collar

Simply a dress shirt without a collar. These are seen in more casual settings and one of our favorite applications of it is on a nice summer linen shirt. This collar makes the most sense for looking dapper on the beach or hotter weather without building up that neck sweat that would leave your other shirts stained. Nobody wants to see that.  

Spread collar

This is your standard dress shirt collar that you probably see recurring in your closet. It is the most aesthetically pleasing one, so most manufacturers use it. It isn’t too pointy, too wide, or too fat. It simply is the best all around collar that can transition from a suit to more casual wear for dinner after work. 

Wide spread collar

This is commonly seen in banking or on Wall Street. However, it has many other uses. It’s usually paired with a windsor knot because of the angle and the button opening by the collar. This collar stance is very wide, almost flat across the wearer's neck, which lends this collar to be almost exclusively for tie wearing and suits. 

Button-down collar

This is the casual collar, and one of our favorites. The button-down collar construction is when the collar leaf is attached to the chest of the shirt using a button. The collar leaf has a small button hole while the shirt has the button sewn in. Here at Portland Dry Goods we like to dress it down but have style in doing so. This is the perfect collar for us. Most of the shirts we carry will have this collar with the exception of a few. The most popular shirt with this collar is the Oxford, which might just be the most useful and practical shirt anyone could have in their closet. 

Some of our favorite shirting brands that we carry are Portuguese Flannel, Billy Reid, Hansen, Alex Mill [Men’s] [Women’s], C.O.F. Studio, Far Afield, Filson, Peter Millar, and Ralph Lauren