Lemaire Embroidered Collar Shirt

The western shirt is one of the most heavily coded garments there is. Pointed yokes front and back, snap fasteners instead of buttons, arrow-pointed pocket flaps, piping, and contrast stitching are all part of a vocabulary so complete that wearing one is usually a costume decision. What has happened here is that nearly all of it has been taken away. What remains is the shape and one piece of embroidery at the collar, which is the part of a western shirt where decoration traditionally sits and the part most people never look at because there is so much else competing. Isolated, it becomes the whole garment. Working it in black on black is what makes the restraint hold: embroidery in a contrasting thread would have pulled the shirt straight back into the reference, and in the same color it reads as a raised texture that only resolves into stitch work close up. The result is a shirt that carries the memory of a western without ever announcing it, which is a much harder thing to make than either the full costume or the plain shirt.

Reference done this quietly is rare. Most houses either commit to the western or leave it alone, and a black-on-black collar is the version you can wear without explaining.

Removing almost everything from a heavily coded garment and keeping one detail is close to a definition of how Lemaire works with references.

100% cotton with an embroidered collar. Made in Tunisia, in black.

A shirt cut in the western shape, which traditionally means a longer body and a defined yoke line through the shoulder. We do not hold measurements, and there is no Lemaire size chart on this site.

Black on black means the collar only shows in good light and at close range, so this works worn open where the collar is visible rather than buttoned to the neck under a jacket. Against black trousers it becomes a single dark column with one point of texture at the top, which is the most effective way to wear it.

Wash cool and dry gently. Embroidery is the part that suffers first in a machine, since dense stitch work shrinks at a different rate from the cloth it sits in and can pucker the collar permanently. Wash inside out, and press around the embroidery rather than over it. Our fabric care guide has a section on cotton.

The Double Pocket Shirt in charcoal is the plain cotton one, the Relaxed Shirt is cut fluid, and the Straight Collar Twisted Shirt is the silk. Everything we carry from Lemaire is listed together.