Nicholas Daley Classic Two Pocket Shirt – Black

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

Wale is the ridge, and the count is how many run to an inch. A high count gives fine needlecord, closer to velvet in hand. A low count gives wide wale, which is what this is: broad, deep cords with real shadow between them. In black the difference is decisive. Flat black absorbs light and disappears into itself, which is why black shirts so often look like nothing at all in a photograph and not much better in person. Wide wale black does the opposite. Every ridge takes a highlight and every channel holds a shadow, so the shirt reads as a texture first and a colour second. Made 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. Wide wale has more body than fine cord and considerably more than a poplin, so this holds its shape and works as a light overshirt as readily as a shirt. Between sizes, take the larger if you will wear it open.

Black cord is the easiest of these to place. Over anything, with anything, and particularly with the Pleated Trouser in khaki, where the black cord against a flat khaki cotton is better than either alone. Worn open over a white tee it is close to an outerwear piece.

Wash cool inside out and hang to dry. Never press it flat with a hot iron, which crushes the pile and leaves a shine that will not come out, and on black it shows worse than on anything else. Steam and brush the pile up while damp. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

The Classic Two Pocket Shirt in beige is the same shirt in a finer cord and the Classic Two Pocket Shirt in madras the flat check. The Wide Leg Trouser is black corduroy at full length, and the Pullcord Trouser in black corduroy is the panelled version of it. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.