Yeung Chin Oversize Shirt

A button and a buttonhole make one closure and only one. The hole is cut in a place, the button is sewn in a place, and the relationship between the two is fixed by the maker before the garment ever reaches anyone. A tie is a different proposition. It has no fixed partner and no fixed tension, so a garment closed with ties has a range rather than a position, and the person wearing it is finishing the design rather than receiving it finished. That is what is going on here. The shirt is cut oversized and asymmetrical, which on its own would simply be a large shirt with an unequal front, and the ties are what turn the asymmetry into a set of options: pulled one way it wraps, pulled another it hangs open, and the surplus cloth that oversizing gives you is the raw material for both. The cloth is plain white cotton, which is the correct choice and probably the only one. A shirt that changes shape is already doing enough, and putting a pattern or a color on it would mean two things competing for the same attention. White also shows the drape, and drape is the whole point of a garment with this much cloth in it.

Why we selected it

Most reconfigurable clothing is a gimmick that resolves into one good version and several bad ones. This one has more than one good version, which is rare enough that we would rather own it than explain it.

Yeung Chin arrived at an avant-garde practice by way of mass-market production, which is an unusual route, and this shirt carries both halves of it: a strange garment that has clearly been engineered.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cotton. Oversized, asymmetrical cut, with multiple ties. Made in Hong Kong. Color: White.

Fit notes

Oversized by design, so it is not cut to a body and the size is choosing how much surplus you want rather than how close it sits. The ties mean the fit at the waist is adjustable across a real range, which is unusual and is the reason a size decision here matters less than it usually would. It goes over a fitted top without any shoulder conflict, because there is no fitted shoulder in it to conflict.

Styling

Over the Embroider T-Shirt or the Embroidered Vest T, which is the version where the ties can be left loose. With the Straight Pants With Raw Edge Detail, since neither garment has anything else on it. Over the Wool Felted Pants, where a very light cloth over a very dense one is the whole idea.

Care

Wash cool and gentle, and take the ties as the fragile part: fabric ties abrade at the knot and pull at the point where they are anchored, so untie them before washing rather than washing them knotted. White cotton also takes heat better than most cloths and still does not need it. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Kimono Shirt is the house’s other tied garment, cut in linen, and the Crop Vest Jacket is a cropped layer that ties as well. Everything we carry from Yeung Chin is listed together.