Massimo Alba Bowles Button-Up – Sand

A spread collar is defined by the angle between its points, wider than a point collar, so the two halves open away from each other and leave a broader gap at the throat. It was drawn for a tie, and it is the collar that sits most comfortably under a jacket lapel, because the points travel outward beneath the cloth rather than crowding it. Almost nobody buying a linen shirt in summer is wearing a tie, and the collar is still the right one, for the second reason rather than the first: worn open, a spread frames the neck instead of pinching it, and it stays where it is put rather than collapsing forward across the afternoon. The chest pocket is the other detail, and it is what keeps the shirt on the useful side of formal.

The linen shirt most people actually want is one that works alone in July and under a jacket in September, and that is entirely a question of the collar. This is the one that does both.

Sixty-one percent linen, thirty-nine percent cotton, made in Italy. Spread collar, chest pocket, mother-of-pearl buttons. Colour: Summer Sand.

Linen-heavy cloth softens considerably over the first season and creases from the moment you sit down, which is the fibre and not the make. Linen has no give, so take the size that lets you reach forward. The spread collar holds its shape open better than a soft collar does, and under a jacket it shows as a clean line rather than as points.

Under the Catch2 jacket in white or the Florida in linen and silk. With the Kevin shorts in Fango or the Ionio2 in Ferro. Summer Sand against white and Summer Sand against indigo are the two.

Wash cool and hang to dry, and iron damp if you iron at all. Mother-of-pearl is brittle, so keep the iron off the buttons and turn the shirt if you are pressing the placket. This is a two-fibre cloth; treat it as the more delicate of the two would want. Our care guidance for mixed cloths covers the rest.

The Bowles Button-Up in white is the same composition in a jacquard, with a camp collar, the Bowles Shirt is the printed cotton, the Canary Button-Up is the linen, and the Florida Jacket in linen and silk is cut in Summer Sand as well. There is more on the house on the Massimo Alba designer page. Everything we carry from Massimo Alba is listed together.