Engineered Garments Rounded Collar Shirt

The rounded collar is the club collar, and it began at Eton in the 1860s as a way of telling one set of boys from another. It crossed to America and picked up a second name, the penny collar, and for the first half of the twentieth century it was the collar you wore with a pin through it, the pin passing behind the knot and pushing the tie forward into a small arch.

Almost nobody pins a collar now, and the shape has outlived the practice, which is worth asking about. The reason is what it does to the face of a shirt. A pointed collar draws two hard diagonals down and away from the throat, and the eye follows them outward. A round one closes the shape instead of opening it. That reads softer without reading looser, and it is the only collar variation that changes the character of a shirt while changing nothing else about it.

In plain white cotton, with nothing else going on anywhere, the collar is the whole proposition and is meant to be.

Why we selected it

The plain white shirt is the hardest thing to make interesting and the easiest thing to make badly. Changing the collar is the only honest way to do it, and this is the change worth making.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton, made in the USA. Rounded penny collar. Colour: White.

Fit notes

A rounded collar sits closer to the neck than a long point and holds its shape open as well as closed, so it works with a tie and without one. We hold no further fit information for this shirt. Cotton relaxes across a day of wearing and recovers in the wash.

Styling

With the Officer Pant in dark navy, tucked, which is what the collar wants. Under the Andover Jacket in charcoal gaberdine. With the FW24 Andover Pant, which is the most formal reading available.

Care

Wash cool and hang to dry. Avoid chlorine bleach on a white cotton: it strips the fibre and turns white yellow over a few years, which is the opposite of the intention. Drying in daylight does more for a white cotton than bleach ever will. Press the collar from the back on a soft surface. Our cotton care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Polo Shirt in white is the knitted white shirt beside this woven one. The Officer Pant in dark navy and the FW24 Andover Pant are the trousers a penny collar suits, with the Andover Jacket in charcoal worsted gaberdine over them. There is more on the house on the Engineered Garments designer page. Everything we carry from Engineered Garments is listed together.