The One Piece Collar: The Greatest Collar You’ve Never Heard of

Enter the one piece col­lar or as it’s also known, the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lar or Ludo Col­lar. An ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry clas­sic, this col­lar was pop­u­lar­ized in the 40s/50s by Hol­ly­wood icon Gary Coop­er. Con­se­quen­tial­ly, it’s some­time also referred to as the Coop­er Col­lar.

At first glance you’d prob­a­bly look and think this col­lar is a type of but­ton down col­lar. Then you look clos­er and go, “wait… some­thing is dif­fer­ent here…”

SPECIAL PROMOTION:  First time Deo Ver­i­tas cus­tomers can use the code UNFUSED for $25 off their first, cus­tom one piece col­lar shirt.

Distinguishing Features & Construction

The col­lar itself is dis­tin­guished in that it’s cut from a sin­gle piece of cloth that extends through the front tor­so and dou­bles as a plack­et. This rein­forc­ing effect allows the col­lar to stand on its own, with­out col­laps­ing under it’s own weight. There is no inter­lin­ing or col­lar band what­so­ev­er which gives it a roll that you won’t see with any oth­er shirt col­lar. We make ours with no top but­ton and a curved top plack­et which give it a unique casu­al look.

Inside the Con­struc­tion of our One Piece Col­lar

For it to look / func­tion as described, the one piece col­lar requires a skilled pat­tern cut­ter, mak­ing it almost exclu­sive­ly a cus­tom or bespoke item. As such, one piece col­lars are rarely found in ready wear shirts. As the plack­et and col­lar are one, the pat­tern needs to be cut with absolute pre­ci­sion and with an exact cur­va­ture that give it such a dis­tinct look. It’s an incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult con­struc­tion that if cut poor­ly, ruins the entire shirt’s look. As a default, we build our one piece col­lar with vis­i­ble col­lar point but­tons how­ev­er we can also makd it with hid­den but­tons behind the col­lar points.

The One Piece Collar in Action

The resul­tant effect is a shirt that looks total­ly nat­ur­al sans tie. If you’re into col­lar roll, the one piece col­lar is the per­fect casu­al shirt – appro­pri­ate with or with­out a blaz­er. The oth­er ben­e­fit is com­fort. You nev­er have to wor­ry about a one piece col­lar col­laps­ing as some col­lars some­times do with a blaz­er.

One piece col­lar with a blaz­er and hid­den but­tons behind col­lar points

One Piece Col­lar with a Navy Blaz­er

Recommended Pairings

As it’s a per­fect sum­mer casu­al, we love it with airy, lighter weight fab­rics, like a linen/cotton, cham­bray, poplin, or one of our spe­cial­ty bamboo/cotton blends.

Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more?  Vis­it Deo Ver­i­tas’ exten­sive col­lar guide that high­lights the one piece col­lar along with many oth­er sar­to­r­i­al favorites.