3Sixteen Resort Shirt – Olive

Two decisions make this shirt, and both of them are invisible in a photograph. The first is a dobby weave. A dobby loom carries a small mechanism that lifts individual warp threads independently, which lets a geometric figure be woven directly into the ground rather than printed onto it. The figure here is tonal, the same colour as the cloth around it, so it registers as texture in raking light and as a plain shirt from any distance. It is on both faces, it cannot crack or wash out, and it gives a plain olive shirt something to look at that a flat poplin never has.

The second is that the shirt is dyed after it is sewn rather than before. Garment dyeing puts the colour onto a finished object, so it reaches the seams, the thread, and the folded edges unevenly, and what comes out is an olive with variation built into it and an already-settled hand. The two together are why this looks like a shirt someone has owned rather than one just bought, which is a difficult effect to get honestly and a very easy one to fake.

Why we selected it

Short-sleeved shirts are the hardest thing to buy well for a man, because most of them are either a novelty print or a plain box with nothing in it. This is the third position: plain from across the room, textured up close, and cut boxy and short enough to be worn out rather than tucked. It is also the piece that made us take the house’s warm-weather shirting seriously.

3Sixteen’s warm-weather shirting is made on the same terms as its outerwear, which is why a summer shirt from this house tends to outlast the summers.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton in a tonal textured dobby, garment dyed. Made in India. Olive. Boxy cut with a shorter body, a pleated back yoke, and mother of pearl buttons.

Fit notes

Boxy through the chest and cut short in the body, so it is drawn to be worn untucked and will look wrong tucked in. The pleated back yoke gives it room across the shoulders without adding width at the waist. Because it is garment dyed there is essentially no shrinkage left in it, so buy the size that fits today.

Styling

With the Drawstring Short and a canvas shoe, which is the entire case for the garment. With the Cargo Pant in olive, tonal, which sounds like too much and is not because the shades are far apart. Over the white Pima tee, open, when it is not quite warm enough.

Care

Machine wash cool and hang to dry. A garment-dyed cotton will let go of a little colour in the first washes and then settle, so keep it away from anything pale at the start, and keep it out of a dryer, which is what takes the depth out of a dyed olive. Our care guidance covers cotton.

Related pieces

With the Drawstring Short, or with the Cargo Pant in Olive for the same colour on a heavier cloth. For a collar that stands, the Club Collar Shirt. Garment dyeing runs through the Work Pant as well. Everything we currently hold from 3Sixteen is listed together.