Your Choices for Spring: Men’s Fashion Shirt Designers

Mens double collar dress shirt.

Spring is here and it’s time to shed your layers and step out with new fashion wear.  How should you pick from the myriad options that the sartorial world presents?  Let’s consider some options and weigh the choices that we have for new men’s fashion dress shirts these days.  For me, the designers of the men’sfashion shirts on the market right now break into three classes: the Big Designers, the Imitators, and the Upstarts. 

First let’s consider the Big Designers.  You know who these guys are and you’ve known about them since you were 14.  They offer not just shirts and not just men’s wear.  They have a global presence, and you can buy their wares online or you can go to a high end department store in your local mall or maybe in a high rise downtown and check them out in person.  Their shirts fit great, and you know that you are getting a quality dress shirt.  However, though their runway shows certainly feature outlandish and forward thinking styles, the fashion shirts available to you may be a little on the conservative side.  Let’s be clear, anyone into fashion probably has lots of these shirts in their closet.  Sometimes you need just a white dress shirt or a blue dress shirt that you can trust, and that you know fits you right.  If you get it from the Big Designers you’ll be paying extra for the name, but you know what you’re getting.

The next category is the Imitators.  These guys don’t really do enough for me to waste much space here writing about them.  They take the classic styles and ideas of the Big Designers and they offer shirts for dramatically less financial outlay.  Sure, this seems like a good idea at first, but when you get the shirt home and it doesn’t fit quite right, and the buttons start falling off, it doesn’t look like such a good deal.  These guys are notorious for skipping over the details that make your favorite shirt special.  Clearly, I think they do not deserve your patronage.

Finally we get to my favorite category, the Upstarts.  These designers are the smallest firms, and thus the creative types have more freedom to express themselves through the design of the product.  This is where you’ll find men’s designer shirts that have real fashion innovation, that are cutting edge, shaping the sartorial landscape of men’s fashion, able to take ideas from the runway and put them into products that you can actually get your hands on.  These brands will charge you a pretty penny just like the Big Designers will, and you might not immediately recognize their name, but you get what you pay for in this world and that means these shirts are of the highest quality.  The fit is every bit as slim as the top designers (sometimes even more!) and the material is impressively smooth and soft.

For me, the choice is simple.  I go with the Upstarts.  Sure, I have stuff from the Big Designers in my closet.  I’ve tried the Imitators and I won’t go back.  Life is about going for it and taking chances, and that’s just what the Upstarts are doing with their shirts, and that’s an idea I can get behind.

Reverse Collar: What’s With the Newest Trend in Men’s Designer Shirts

Reverso shirt with leather band cufflinks

There’s a new trend in European dress shirts and it’s starting to make its way across the Atlantic and is now showing up online available here in the U.S.  It’s something that you might not notice the second you look at the shirt, but when you see it, you’ll be surprised and intrigued.  I’m referring, of course, to the reverse collar.  It’s a collar with an extra fold so it ends pointed up instead of down. If you’ve never seen one you’re probably thinking, “Wait, what? How is that possible?  What does that look like? How does it stay folded up?”  Well, no matter the designer or the style, there is always a very strategically placed button on the collar, not too high, not too low, but just in the right spot to keep the collar folded perfectly back up.  This allows designers like Franck Michel to show a classy contrasting color look on the collar, playing with a different color on the underside of the collar.

For an example of a designer playing with this contrast color collar look, check out Franck Michel’s Miami Blue, available in the States for $149 at fashion-shirts.com. It sure isn’t the only Franck Michel offering on fashion-shirts.com that features a reverse collar.  While that price point puts it solidly in the luxury tier of men’s designer shirts these shirts have all the other components of a luxury shirt that you would expect.  The material is the finest Italian cotton, and fit is extra slim.  I love the extra slim fit personally, but it isn’t for everyone and you have to be careful selecting your size.  Franck Michel is a design house in the heart of Paris that is famous around Europe for this trend and is just starting to bring this look to the U.S.

So what are these shirts good for?  Well they aren’t ideal for wearing with a tie, so they might not be perfect for wearing to work for some folks.  On the other hand, they are perfect for a night out.  The thing I love about these shirts, is the attention you get when you are wearing them.  Stylish people notice the details like the reverse collar and are certain to ask you about it.  I’ve never had so many people interested in my shirt as when I wear a reverse collar like this.  For me, that’s always a good thing.  When I go out I’m always aiming to meet new people and if we can start out on the right foot because of my unique and stylish designer shirt that’s great for me. Trust me you’ll meet the right people wearing a shirt like this, if you know what I’m saying.

Men’s Designer Shirts: Why being different is a good thing

Luxury shirts by Franck Michel Paris

When you are considering buying a new men’s dress shirt, there are a lot of things to think about.  Of course you want to get something that is high quality, you know you deserve the best.  You want the highest quality fabrics that will feel comfortable on your skin, and if you are going to spend a pretty penny on it you want it to last.  Obviously it’s got to fit right, that goes without saying.  You’ll never wear the most beautiful shirt in the world if it won’t button in the front or if it’s so big that you are swimming in it.  For me, there are two things I think about beyond that.  First of all, is this designer shirt going to make me stand out from the crowd?  Then once I know I have people’s eyes on me, is this shirt going to make me look good?  It’s no good to attract attention if those people aren’t impressed with how you look.
Fashionable men’s designer shirts don’t all stand out of course.  Many big designers are fairly conservative and depend on the name recognition of their brand to sell shirts.  Their products don’t look much different than dress shirts that you can buy in a cheap department store.  Sure they are made with better materials and might be a slimmer fit and the shirt will definitely look better on your body than the cheap department store shirt, but no one is going to look closely enough at you to notice.  Especially on a night out where you’ll probably be in a dark environment most of the time, if you are wearing a plain shirt, you’re just going to blend into the background.   For some people that might be what you are going for, but not me.  I’m happy with a little bit of extra attention.
For me then, it’s more useful to shop the smaller design firms.  It’s harder to get your hands on these shirts, especially if you don’t live in Paris, but trust me it’s worth it.  The fact that these designers can’t rely on their labels to sell shirts is good for you.  They have to impress you in order to sell their fashion shirts, and this means they make shirts that will impress others when you wear them.  These designers don’t skimp on quality or fit either.  Take Franck Michel for instance.  You won’t find a shirt with higher quality fabrics or a more European fit.  It’s a serious slim fit, you might have to order one size larger unless you look like a skinny European soccer player, but trust me, these are the shirts that will get you the same kind of attention that those soccer players get if you know what I mean.