Nicholas Daley Bowling Shirt

The bowling shirt is a 1950s American garment with a Caribbean cousin, and the two have been trading details for seventy years. What they share is the panelled front, the open camp collar, and the piping that outlines the panels and turns a plain shirt into a piece of graphic design. Daley is working the Caribbean side of that family here, and the giveaway is the restraint: no chain stitching, no embroidered name over the pocket, no nostalgia.

The interest is in the cloth. A check woven from cotton with a fifth of its content in wool is an unusual thing to build a summer shirt from, and the wool is what gives it body. It stops the panels from collapsing, keeps the piping standing proud of the seam, and gives the whole shirt a slight structure that a pure cotton version would not have. Against the check, solid navy panels do the job colour-blocking always does, which is to make the eye read the shirt as a designed object rather than as a length of patterned fabric with buttons on it.

Why we selected it

The piping is the reason. It is a slow, fiddly, expensive detail that adds nothing functional and completely changes the shirt, and a house willing to pay for it on a camp shirt is a house we want to carry. The wool in the cloth was the second reason.

The Caribbean half of Nicholas Daley’s inheritance shows up in the cut and the colour of shirts like this one rather than in any explicit reference.

Materials and construction

Body seventy-nine percent cotton and twenty-one percent wool. Trim one hundred percent polyester. Made in Japan. Camp collar, panelled front, contrast piping. Colour: brown and navy check.

Fit notes

A camp-collar cut that sits open at the neck and is meant to be worn untucked and slightly loose. The wool content gives it more body than a cotton shirt, so it holds its shape rather than following yours. Take your usual size.

Styling

Over a plain tee with the Pleated Trouser in khaki. With the Wide Short in high summer. Do not put it with another pattern, and do not tuck it in, which is what turns a bowling shirt into a costume.

Care

The wool content rules out a hot wash. Wash cool and gently or have it cleaned, and dry flat away from heat. Press on low if at all, because the piping will not survive a heavy iron. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Western Shirt carries the same piping in a rayon and cotton mix. The Classic Two Pocket Shirt in beige is the plain corduroy shirt, and the Aloha Shirt the woven jacquard. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.