3Sixteen Club Collar Shirt

The club collar is an English idea from the turn of the last century, a rounded collar originally worn detached and starched, and it has spent the intervening hundred years being either very formal or very affected. Putting one on indigo selvedge broadcloth is the thing that rescues it. The collar brings the manners and the cloth removes the pretension, and what you have is a shirt that can be worn under a blazer and also with a pair of raw jeans on a Saturday without either occasion feeling like a stretch.

The broadcloth is woven in Japan on narrow selvedge looms, which is unusual for a shirting and slower than it needs to be. Indigo-dyed shirting starts with a dry hand and a deep, slightly flat colour, then opens up: the surface texture becomes more pronounced with washing and the indigo lightens unevenly where the shirt creases and rubs. A shirt that improves is rarer than a jean that improves, mostly because nobody bothers.

Why we selected it

It is the shirt in this line that we could not find elsewhere. Indigo shirting is common and indigo selvedge shirting with a club collar and a bellows pocket is not, and it solves a genuine gap between a flannel and a proper dress shirt that most wardrobes have and few stores stock for.

3Sixteen’s shirting sits alongside its denim rather than beneath it, and the Club Collar is where the house is most obviously enjoying itself.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, Japanese selvedge indigo broadcloth, made in India. Rounded club collar, bellows chest pocket, inverted box pleat at the back.

Fit notes

A shirt cut, not an overshirt, and slimmer through the body than the Crosscut Flannel. It is meant to be tucked or left out with equal comfort. Indigo broadcloth has very little give when new and relaxes noticeably after two or three washes, so a collar that feels precise on day one will settle. If you wear it primarily under a jacket, take your usual shirt size.

Styling

Under the Work Blazer with the collar buttoned is the most formal 3Sixteen gets, and it is genuinely good. Open over a white tee with the cargo pant is the other end of it. Indigo on indigo, shirt over raw denim, is a harder look and worth attempting if the two shades are far enough apart.

Care

Wash cold, inside out, on its own for the first few washes, because indigo shirting gives up colour early. Hang to dry and press damp if you press it at all. Our general care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The heavier shirt in the line is the Crosscut Flannel. It goes under the Work Blazer and over the CS-100x, and the Knit Polo is what to reach for when a collar with buttons is too much. Everything we currently hold from 3Sixteen is listed together.