Comme des Garçons Homme Gingham Shirt

Gingham is about as domestic as a cloth gets. It is a plain weave in two colors, it has been on tablecloths and school uniforms and summer shirts for two centuries, and nothing about it carries any edge at all. That is the point of putting metal donut buttons on it. A donut button is a flat metal ring, industrial in origin and cold to the touch, and running a column of them down a blue and white check produces a garment that is doing two incompatible things at once and refusing to resolve them. The cloth stays soft and familiar; the closure stays hard and machined. Neither wins. One hundred percent cotton, made in Japan, in blue and white.

We look for the piece in a line that changes one element and leaves everything else alone, because that is the version that stays wearable. On this shirt the one element is the buttons.

Comme des Garçons Homme habitually alters a single component of a familiar garment rather than redesigning the garment, and the buttons here are that method at its clearest.

One hundred percent cotton in a blue and white gingham. Metal donut buttons down the front. Made in Japan. Color: Blue/White Gingham.

A metal button is heavier than a shell one and it hangs the placket a little straighter, which is visible when the shirt is worn open. Cotton at full strength gives nothing at the shoulder, so choose there. It presses hard and holds the press.

Under the Homme Fleece Jacket or the Homme Bomber Jacket, where only the buttons show. With the Homme Fatigue Trousers, olive against blue, which is the easiest thing in the line to get right.

Wash cool and dry away from heat. Metal buttons take heat faster than the cloth does, so press around them rather than over them, and turn the shirt to press the placket from the reverse. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Homme LS Button-Up is plain white cotton with its detail at the hem, and the Homme SS Embroidered Button Down is cotton with a curved hem. Everything we carry from Comme des Garçons is listed together.