Massimo Alba Pamela Shirt

A ruffle is a strip of cloth gathered along one edge so that the free edge carries more length than it can lie flat with, and the surplus becomes volume. It is among the oldest decorative devices in shirt-making and among the easiest to overdo, because the temptation is always to add another centimetre and another gather until the shirt is wearing the ruffle rather than the other way round. Restraint is the whole difference. Set at the neck and the cuffs only, on a plain white cotton with nothing else competing, the ruffle stops being costume and becomes a way of softening the two places a shirt meets the body most visibly. It is also why the shirt can be worn with a plain trouser and still be the thing you are wearing.

Decoration is the hardest thing to buy on someone else's behalf, because a ruffle is either right by a centimetre or wrong by one. This one is right, and it is right on a plain white shirt, which is where it is most useful.

One hundred percent cotton. Ruffled neck and cuffs. Colour: Bianco.

The ruffle at the neck adds visual width across the collarbone, so the shirt reads fuller at the top than its cut would suggest, which is worth knowing if you are between sizes. The cuffs will not go under a close jacket sleeve without crushing, so this wants an open layer over it or none at all. Cotton at shirt weight softens across the first season and creases the way any cotton does.

With the Karly trousers in beige or the Lois in Wood, tucked, which is what the neckline is drawn for. Under the Stromboli jacket in Grape, worn open so the neck shows. Alone with the sleeves down, because the cuffs are half the point.

Wash cool and hang to dry. Press the body if you press anything and leave the ruffles alone, or work them from the underside with the point of the iron, because a flattened ruffle takes a long time to come back. Our cotton care guidance covers the rest.

The Selma Shirt is the linen shirt, the Karly Trousers are the wide-leg linen, the Lois Trouser in Wood is the high-waisted linen, and the Stromboli Jacket is the linen jacket. There is more on the house on the Massimo Alba designer page. Everything we carry from Massimo Alba is listed together.