Nicholas Daley Classic Two Pocket Shirt – Beige

An open collar, two patch pockets on the chest, and nothing else. This is the plainest shirt Daley makes and the one that shows most clearly how he thinks about a shirt. There is no yoke detail to notice, no placket trick, and no contrast anywhere. The interest sits entirely in the cloth and in the collar, which is cut to lie open and flat rather than to stand up around a tie. That is a camp collar in everything but name, and it is why the shirt works loose over a tee as readily as it works buttoned to the neck. Daley builds outward from garments like this one. The tailoring and the outerwear take the attention, but the two-pocket shirt is the constant, remade every season in whatever the collection's cloth happens to be.

The cloth

Corduroy is a cut-pile cloth. Extra weft yarns are woven in, then sliced open and brushed so the cut ends stand up as cords running the length of the fabric. That pile is why corduroy behaves the way it does: it holds light along the top of each wale and shadow in the channel between, so a flat colour arrives with depth in it. In beige this matters more than it would in a dark shade, because a flat beige is the most inert colour in menswear and a beige with pile in it is not. Woven and made up in England.

We selected the shirt for its collar and then took the corduroy in two colours, because a cord shirt this plain gets worn until it gives out and one shade was never going to cover it. It is the piece a customer actually wears every week, which is the plainest recommendation a shirt can have.

The two-pocket shirt is where Nicholas Daley's cloth work is easiest to read, because the pattern gets out of the way and leaves the fabric to do all of the talking.

Cut easy through the chest and shoulder with a collar that lies open and flat. Corduroy has body and will hold its own shape rather than following yours, softening across the first season. It works buttoned as a shirt or open over a tee as a light overshirt. Between sizes, take the larger if you intend to wear it open.

Over a plain tee with the Pleated Trouser in black. Under the Fonte Jacket, where corduroy against wool is one of the better textures in menswear. Beige will carry almost anything, which is what beige is for.

Wash cool inside out and hang to dry. Never press corduroy flat with a hot iron, which crushes the pile and leaves a permanent shine. Steam it instead and brush the pile back up while it is damp. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

The Classic Two Pocket Shirt in black is the same shirt in a wide wale cord, and the Classic Two Pocket Shirt in madras is the flat yarn-dyed check. The Wide Short is beige corduroy cut as a short, and the Wide Leg Trouser is the corduroy trouser. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.