3Sixteen Short Sleeve Loop Shirt

A buttonhole is a hole. It is cut through the cloth and then bound with stitching to stop it from travelling, and on a densely woven shirting that is a solved problem. On an open, irregular, loosely spun cloth it is not: the buttonhole is the weakest point in the garment and the first place a shirt of this kind gives out. The answer here is older than the problem and comes from the same part of the world the cloth does. The placket closes through loops set into its edge, so the button passes through a loop rather than through the fabric, and nothing anywhere on the front is cut. It also changes how the shirt hangs: the two edges meet rather than overlapping, so the front sits flat and the closure reads as a line rather than as a band.

The cloth is fifty-five percent linen and forty-five percent rayon. Linen brings the dryness and the slub, the thick-and-thin irregularity along the yarn that makes a cloth look spun rather than manufactured. Rayon is a regenerated cellulosic, and what it adds is weight and fall: it takes dye to a depth linen cannot reach on its own, and it stops the shirt creasing quite as hard as a pure linen would. The green is better for both of those things than either fibre would manage alone.

Why we selected it

This is the summer shirt for someone who has decided against a camp collar and against a printed one, and that leaves almost nothing. A drapey linen blend in a real colour, cut short in the sleeve, closing without hardware, is a narrow and unserved category. It is also the piece in this house with the most obvious thought in it.

3Sixteen’s shirting draws on garments the house has come across rather than on archives, and the loop placket came back from a trip to India.

Materials and construction

Fifty-five percent linen and forty-five percent rayon. Made in India. Green. Loop closures down the front placket, an open collar, short sleeves, and a single chest pocket.

Fit notes

Cut relaxed rather than close, and the loop closure means the front has no overlap to take up ease, so it sits flatter than a conventional placket and reads slightly narrower. Linen and rayon together relax across a day of wear and recover less completely than cotton, so this is a shirt that settles into a shape rather than returning precisely to one. Take your usual size.

Styling

With the Drawstring Short, which is what it is for. With the Cargo Pant in olive on a warm evening, green against olive, which needs the two to be far enough apart and they are. Over the white Pima tee, open, sleeves as they fall.

Care

Wash cool and hang to dry, and expect creases, because that is linen working rather than failing. Rayon is weakest when it is wet, so handle it gently in the wash and never wring it. Press damp on a low iron if you press it at all. Our care guidance covers linen, it covers regenerated cellulosics like rayon, and it covers what to do when a garment is more than one material.

Related pieces

For a long-sleeved shirt in the same register, the Club Collar Shirt. Linen turns up again in the LS Knit Polo. It works with the Drawstring Short and with the Cargo Pant. Everything we currently hold from 3Sixteen is listed together.