Margaret Howell Three Button Shirt

A shirt with three buttons is a different garment from a shirt with eight, and not because of the five that are missing. A full placket is a line of tension down the front of the body, and it is what makes a shirt sit flat and read as formal. Take most of it away and the cloth below the fastening is free to fall, so the shirt widens as it descends and moves like a smock. Add a cropped sleeve and a light cotton and you have something built entirely for heat, where the point is air moving through the garment rather than the garment sitting close. The three buttons that remain are doing a real job, holding the neckline where it should be, and nothing else is asked of them.

Most warm-weather shirts are a normal shirt in a thinner cloth. This one is constructed differently for the weather rather than just woven differently.

One hundred percent cotton, made in Italy. Relaxed fit, three-button front, cropped sleeve. Color: Black.

Relaxed and open below the fastening, so it falls away from the body rather than following it. Numeric sizing. The cropped sleeve sits above the elbow, which changes the proportion of the whole garment and is worth seeing on before deciding on a size.

Over the relaxed crop pant, which is the plainest and best version. Under the linen blazer with the sleeves of both left as they are. Black in a light cotton reads as a summer black rather than a formal one, which is the useful thing about it.

Wash cool and hang to dry. A light cotton with an open front creases at the shoulder if it is dried folded, so hang it wet from the shoulders. Our general care guidance covers the rest.

The Bib Front Shirt doubles the cloth across the chest for its structure, the Short Sleeve Raglan Shirt has no shoulder seam at all, and the Relaxed Blazer is a worn linen cut easy through the shoulder. There is more on the house on the Margaret Howell designer page. Everything we carry from Margaret Howell is listed together.