Alexander Julian SS26 Shirts

Most shirts are a cut applied to somebody else’s cloth. A mill weaves, a designer chooses, and what arrives on a hanger is a decision made two steps downstream from the yarn. Alexander Julian works the other way around and has since the beginning: he designs the cloth first and the shirt second, which is why a plain collared shirt from him is not a plain shirt. It is a piece of textile design with sleeves attached to it.

What that buys on a lightweight cotton is subtler than a pattern. Color in a woven cloth is not printed onto a surface, it is built out of yarn, and a designer working at the yarn stage has decisions available that a designer working at the piece stage does not. Purple, Dark Blue, and Light Blue are the quiet end of that. The Blue/Purple Plaid is the end where it stops being quiet, because a plaid is the form in which a weaver has to commit: every color decision in it is visible in the finished cloth, and none of them can be corrected once the cloth is off the loom.

Why we selected it

Menswear is full of shirts that are fine and forgettable, and the difference is almost always the cloth rather than the collar. This one was made by a man who designed the cloth on purpose, and we would rather sell that than another good collar.

Alexander Julian was the first American designer to design his own cloth, and more or less everything else about his work follows from it.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, lightweight, in cloth Alexander Julian designed himself. Regular fit, collared. Made in North Carolina. Colorways: Purple, Dark Blue, Light Blue, and Blue/Purple Plaid. We do not hold a weave, a yarn count, a collar style, a cuff, a button material, or a mill for this shirt, and we describe none of them.

Fit notes

Sized Medium, Large, and X-Large. Regular fit, which on a lightweight cotton means it is cut to hang from the shoulder rather than to hold the body, so it works untucked as well as tucked and it takes a knit over it without bunching at the armhole. We do not hold a preshrink claim for this cotton, so wash it cool the first time and let it tell you where it settles. There is no chest, length, or sleeve measurement to give you.

Styling

The solids do what solids do: they go under everything, and they are the thing to reach for when the pattern in an outfit is going to come from somewhere else. The Blue/Purple Plaid is a shirt to wear on its own, because a jacket over it edits out most of the reason you bought it. Each of them is light enough to be the only layer in July and thin enough to go under a jacket in October, which is a narrower range of cloth than it sounds.

Care

Cotton is the most forgiving thing in a wardrobe as long as you keep it out of a hot dryer, which is where cotton shirts actually die. Wash cool, hang it damp so the weight of the water pulls the body straight, and press the collar and the cuffs while there is still moisture in them. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

How We Look at Clothes and How to Build a Wardrobe are the two Library pieces that sit closest to the argument on this page. Everything we carry from Alexander Julian is listed together.