When look­ing for a dress shirt, it can be con­fus­ing some­times because there can be too many choices. After nar­row­ing it down to the right color, col­lar and fit, the dress shirt’s fab­ric comes into the equa­tion. I’m going to give you a primer on what to look for regard­ing fab­rics, since it can deter­mine how you keep your cool dur­ing a sum­mer after­noon or how you look at that swanky new restau­rant with the lady friend.

Every dress shirt is a com­bi­na­tion of its weave, thread count and fiber. Ulti­mately, this com­bi­na­tion will deter­mine the feel and look of the dress shirt. This is what deter­mines the final product.

Fibers

Cot­ton dress shirts breathe very well and can also be very soft, feel­ing the most com­fort­able of all fibers. It’s a good con­duc­tor of heat, feels and looks nat­ural and pro­vides the best over­all qual­ity, which can make it expen­sive. Keep in mind it does wrin­kle eas­ily. Blended shirts are com­mon because they are less expen­sive than cot­ton, are wrin­kle free and pro­vide good warmth, though, less com­fort­able than cot­ton. Since they are a com­bi­na­tion of cot­ton and poly­ester, they are not breath­able, so avoid it dur­ing the sum­mer. On the other hand, linen is per­fect dur­ing a hot day, but is noto­ri­ous for wrin­kling. Per­son­ally, I avoid linen because I don’t want my shirt look­ing like I slept in it.

Weaves

Oxford cloth is one of the more pop­u­lar weaves, due to it’s soft­ness and good dura­bil­ity. It can be worn for for­mal or casual occa­sions. It has a “bas­ket weave” appear­ance, the fab­ric cross­ing over in pairs. Pin­point Oxford is a higher end Oxford, hav­ing a lighter weight and finer tex­ture. Royal Oxford is finer still, usu­ally worn for for­mal occasions.

Broad­cloth is a tightly woven fab­ric with a silky tex­ture, giv­ing it a smooth, for­mal appear­ance. It’s one of the most for­mal dress shirts you can wear, dis­play­ing pat­terns, such as stripes, with great detail. Also, it’s great dur­ing the cooler months, pro­vid­ing insu­la­tion, dur­ing Spring or Fall.

Twill dress shirts use a diag­o­nal pat­tern, giv­ing it a unique look but also has a strong tex­ture which looks great on shirts with a solid color, mak­ing the pat­terns more vis­i­ble. It’s gen­er­ally light weight, lighter than Oxford and Broad­cloth, but also very durable, not soil­ing easily.

Poplin, sim­i­lar to Broad­cloth, is made up of 100% cot­ton hav­ing a soft, com­fort­able feel, not requir­ing much iron­ing. It makes a good sum­mer shirt. It has a very smooth look, though, there is a fine hor­i­zon­tal ribbed effect on the sur­face. Also, it drapes very well to the body so it’s impor­tant to have it sized properly.

Her­ring­bone is a cus­tom dress shirt that is tightly woven with a fine ribbed effect. It’s used with Twill, cre­at­ing a weave made up of rows in oppo­site direc­tions, form­ing a zig zag pat­tern. It looks great on solid col­ored shirts, bring­ing out the unique details of the fab­ric. Com­pared to an Oxford shirt, the Her­ring­bone has a smoother feel and classier appear­ance. Not a com­mon weave, but def­i­nitely unique.

The final piece is the thread count, which tells you how many threads were used to make the fab­ric. Most dress shirts range from 40 — 160.  The higher the thread count, the higher the qual­ity, such as a softer, finer fin­ish. A lower thread count usu­ally pro­duces less qual­ity but it could also mean a heav­ier fab­ric, for cooler weather. Another fac­tor to con­sider with thread count is the ply, which means how many threads were twisted together before mak­ing the fab­ric. Two ply takes two strands, twists them together, and pro­duces a durable, smooth fab­ric. Sin­gle ply uses one strand and there­fore, pro­duces less over­all qual­ity. So a two ply, 80 thread count dress shirt would be bet­ter than a sin­gle ply, 120 thread count shirt. Take a look at the fab­rics we offer to get a bet­ter idea.

Ulti­mately, the final prod­uct crafted by the tai­lor or designer will deter­mine the qual­ity of your dress shirt,  but know­ing the fun­da­men­tals of what goes into a dress shirt will help you get what you want, what­ever the occa­sion maybe. This is just the tip of the ice­berg regard­ing fab­rics, as there are many dif­fer­ent styles, pref­er­ences and opin­ions on what makes a great shirt, but the basics will never change, even when your style does.

Return to our home­page to learn more about cus­tom dress shirts.

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Categories: Men's Dress Shirt Guide, Men's Style Guide

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