Nicholas Daley Military Overshirt

Military garments are designed to be identical. That is their entire logic: a pattern is standardised, issued in the thousands, and every example is meant to be interchangeable with every other. It is why military patterns are such good clothes, and it is also the assumption Daley breaks here. He takes the whole vocabulary of an issued field shirt, the bellows pockets that expand when loaded, the side vents, the plain functional buttons, and then puts the finished thing through a hand dye process that guarantees no two are the same.

Sashiko does the same work from the other direction. It is a Japanese running stitch developed for reinforcement and repair, worked in grids across cloth that needed to last, and it is the most literal possible statement that a garment is meant to be kept rather than replaced. An issued shirt is disposable by design. A sashiko-stitched one is the opposite.

Olive is the correct colour to do this in, because it is the colour the original garments came in and because green takes an uneven dye better than almost anything else. Made in Japan, which is where the dyeing and the stitching both belong.

Why we selected it

We bought this as the most complete argument the house makes. It contains almost everything it does, the military pattern, the Japanese craft, the hand dyeing, the insistence that clothes should outlast their season, and it is a wearable shirt rather than a manifesto. It is the piece we reach for when somebody wants to understand Nicholas Daley in one garment.

Nicholas Daley’s Japanese production is where his hand-dyeing and his reinforcement stitching are done, and this overshirt is the piece that carries both at once.

Materials and construction

Eighty-four percent cotton and sixteen percent linen, made in Japan. Sashiko stitching, oversized bellows chest pockets with side vent details, military-style button fastenings. Hand-dyed. Colour: Olive Green.

A bellows pocket has a pleated gusset built into its sides so it expands as it fills, which is why military patterns use them and shirts generally do not.

Fit notes

An overshirt, drafted to go over a shirt or a knit rather than against the skin. Cotton and linen together will crease readily and relax across a day, then recover with washing. The pockets add structure to the front, so the shirt holds its shape better than the composition alone would suggest. Take your usual size for wearing over a tee; size up if it is going over a waffle crew all winter.

Styling

Over the Waffle Crew Neck in black with the Pullcord Trouser. Over a plain tee with the Cargo Pants in waxed cotton, which is this shirt at its most workwear. Olive will take indigo, black, khaki, and ecru, and it will not take a tartan.

Care

Wash cool and alone for the first several washes, because hand-dyed cotton releases colour. Dry away from direct sun, which will flatten the contrast the dye process created. Do not bleach. Press on the reverse if at all, and never over the sashiko stitching. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Lavenham Sashiko Jacket carries the same stitching as outerwear. The Beach Shirt is the lighter dyed shirt, the Cargo Pants the waxed cotton trouser, and the Field Shirt the yarn-dyed check. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.