Nicholas Daley Lee Shirt

Ties instead of buttons is the detail to notice, and it is not a small one. A button is a fixed point: it closes a shirt at one specific tension and nowhere else. A tie closes at whatever tension you give it, which is why every garment tradition built around movement, from Japanese workwear to martial arts uniforms to the wrap dress, arrives at a tie sooner or later. Daley uses them across his line, and here he has put them on both the chest and the cuffs, so the whole shirt adjusts rather than fastening.

The cloth is indigo linen and cotton, majority linen, which behaves very differently from the denim it resembles. Linen takes indigo with less depth than cotton and loses it faster at the points of wear, so an indigo linen shirt lightens along the forearm, the shoulder, and the front edge within a season. It does not fade in the high-contrast way raw denim fades. It fades the way a sail fades, evenly and all over, and it ends up somewhere considerably softer than where it started.

Why we selected it

We took this for the tie closures, which are the most useful piece of design Daley does and the one customers notice with their hands rather than their eyes. The cloth was the second reason: an indigo linen ages in a way indigo cotton cannot.

Tie fastenings run through Nicholas Daley’s shirting, waistcoats, and outerwear, and this overshirt is where they do the most work.

Materials and construction

Fifty-nine percent linen and forty-one percent cotton, made in England. Overshirt cut, tie closures at the chest and at the wrists. Colour: Indigo.

Fit notes

Cut as an overshirt, so it is drafted to go over a shirt or a tee rather than against the skin. The tie closures mean the fit at the chest and wrist is adjustable within a range, which makes it forgiving. Linen relaxes across a day of wearing. Take your usual size; sizing up will leave the ties working harder than they should.

Styling

Over a plain white tee with the Pleated Trouser in black. Over the Waffle Crew Neck in black as a light jacket in spring. Indigo is a neutral in this store, so it will go with almost everything except the tartans.

Care

Wash it cool and alone for the first several washes, because indigo releases colour and will find anything pale in the machine. Dry away from direct sun, which bleaches indigo unevenly. Do not bleach. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Five Pocket Jean is the patterned denim, and the Military Overshirt the heavier overshirt. The Zip-Through Shirt Jacket is the wool check, and the Classic Two Pocket Shirt in black the plain corduroy shirt. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.