Nigel Cabourn Fisherman’s Shirt

A stripe is the oldest way of making a plain garment legible at a distance, and it survived in working clothes long after it stopped being necessary because it turned out to look good. This shirt is built around that and around very little else. The cloth is one hundred percent cotton, the fit is relaxed rather than shaped, and the detailing is the kind that working clothes carry: functional, visible, and not decorative. What that adds up to is a shirt that reads as a striped shirt first and as everything else second, which is the correct order for a garment like this. Blue and white, and made in Japan.

A striped shirt is the easiest thing in the world to buy and the hardest to buy once. Most of them are either too fine to wear casually or too coarse to wear anywhere else. This one sits in between.

Cabourn works from clothes that people wore for a living, and sea clothes are one of the oldest sources in that archive.

One hundred percent cotton in a blue and white stripe. Relaxed fit. Made in Japan.

Relaxed through the body rather than cut close, so it will layer under a jacket without pulling at the shoulder. Cotton of this weight softens with washing and does not lose its shape doing it. A stripe running vertically on a relaxed body is doing work the cut is not.

Under the Fireman Jacket or the French Work Jacket. With the Officer's Pant in beige, where the stripe is the only pattern in the outfit and does not need help.

Machine wash cool and gently, and dry flat or on a line rather than hot, since heat is what shrinks a cotton shirt and it only does it once. Press on the reverse. Our care guidance covers cotton in more detail.

The British Officer's Shirt is cotton cut with back darts, and the Open Collar Shirt is linen and cotton in a near-even blend. Everything we carry from Nigel Cabourn is listed together.