What is considered a quality dress shirt?

Now days men have become cautious about their dressing, they are more knowledgeable about trends and styles, they love to go for quality clothing. In recent past though off-rack clothing was in vogue, but men of class were not satisfied. Evolution of on-line business has given boom to online custom made clothing. Same is true for custom made dress shirts. So when going for custom made dress shirts one need to be careful about certain things to ensure what they are getting for money spent, can be termed as quality dress shirt.

There are certain things to be checked for quality, few are quite simple while others are bit complicated but still can be checked.

Quality Fabric:

The fabric has to be 100% cotton; cotton shirts are best known for comfort, these shirts not only look good but they are pleasure to wear too. Quality of fabric is very easy to check, if it has quality it will speak for itself while you hold it in your hand. It is true that cotton shirts are bit expensive and require more maintenance but then this is all for our own comfort. Cotton fabric do come as wrinkle free fabric, but it would be a big misconception to think that this fabric don’t get wrinkles, benefit of wrinkle free fabric is it needs little less ironing.  Custom dress shirt makers such as NattyShirts.com have wide range of quality cotton fabrics for shirts and the provide guarantee for 100% cotton fabric as well.

Quality shirts are prepared in man-made fabric too. If you are inclined to buy 100% man-made fiber or mix fiber shirt make sure the climate of your area allows you to wear it. It might probably cost less and requires less maintenance.

Clean Stitching

The international bench mark for the clean stitching of the quality dress shirt is, it must be stitched with at least 18 stiches per inch.  Another check for the clean stitching is, it has to be single needle stitching. Stitches especially around collar, cuff & side seam tell the whole story of the quality of stitching. Stitches have to tight enough but there should not be any puckering before and after wash.

Pattern matching

Shirt fabric can be plain, stripped, or checked. In case of plain obviously there is no issue of pattern matching, but if the fabric is stripped or checked, the pattern matching is essential, especially at the center back of the split yoke. If the shirt is with front pocket it requires pattern matching as well. A real high quality shirt will have the pattern at end of yoke matched with pattern at top of sleeves. The stripes have to be well balanced on both sides of the placket. Still there may be part of the shirts where pattern might not have been matched as is case of sleeves meeting cuffs. 

 

Shirt Collar

No matter what is the style of the collar, quality of the collar is vital for shirt appearance.  Quality of collar includes cutting, stitching, fusing and crispness. The curve of the collar must be natural and the crispness does not mean that collar has to be extra hard. To maintain proper shape of fused collars, it is better if the removable collar stays are used. Un-fused collars are soft collars; if the shirt makers don’t have right expertise the collar look would ruin the entire shirt.

Buttons

Options are available for shirt buttons, but usually shirt makers by default are using plastic shirt buttons, but if we are talking about quality dress shirt, it’s better to go for mother-of-pearl (MOP) buttons; these buttons not only look smart but it gives elegant look to entire shirt. Usually thin MOP buttons are used, thicker or the taller MOPs are available but they are definitely expensive. In addition to these horn buttons are another option to go for.

Quality shirts always have two buttons on sleeves, one on the cuff and one on the sleeve placket, this button on sleeve placket prevents the sleeve from gapping open unnecessarily. It is quality thing that some extra buttons are attached to it.

Button Hole

The button hole must be sewn with more and clean stitches. There must not be any loose threads and the opening has to be clean.

Shirt Cuffs

Likewise collars of the shirt, options for cuffs are also available, cuffs can also be fused. Quality shirt usually has hand sewn cuffs, which shows the craftsmanship.

Side Gusset

Having gussets at the bottom of the side seams is also part of the quality shirt. Gusset prevents the shirt seam from ripping off due to hostile tucking or un-tucking of shirt.

Gentlemansgazette.com is good for further reading about quality shirts. Or you may visit nattyshirts.com to check how the quality shirts are being produced.