Hardwear Highlight: Shirt

Hardwear Highlight: Shirt

With tradeshows on hold, Carved in Blue is putting its capsule collection out one digital post at a time.

This week, we’re highlighting the Carved in Blue® SHIRT.

Shirts have been around for millennia. The humble work shirts as we know them are documented to have been made around early 1900s. but the evolution of the shirt is very fascinating. A garment which you can tell by the wearer which class you’re from, from the type of collar shape. But shirts have changed a lot over the years. 

“Religion is not changed as easily as a shirt,” King Henry IV of France observeD, ruling during a time of period in France. 

The shirt has remained mostly unchanged over the past half-century or more—but that hasn’t always been the case.Detachable sleeves for flirting? Shirttails as underwear? Over the years, this core garment has evolved (and devolved) in fascinating and sometimes funny ways. The turn of the century is an interesting time for workwear; we know from this time period is thanks to catalogues, or photographs. work shirts from this era were pullovers, featured, and were single-needle or double-needle stitched. Labels were almost always cotton and printed, back yokes tended to be very high and thin. 

In the 1920s the pointed collar starts overtaking the rounded collar as the men’s style most typical for business wear. 

1924 marked the first recorded use of the term “blue-collar worker.” The color of one’s shirt is at this point an important class indicator. The “white-collar”—so called because those in more elevated positions are less likely to get their shirts dirty, and are thus able to wear white- is already a phenomenon. 

It’s around this period where ventilated yoke shirt design that was filed in 1928-29 by John W. Champion—which become the standard to workwear shirts. 

For the Carved in Blue® hardware collection the ENDRIME® team got their main inspiration from a Depression era Pay Day shirt acquired in Greensboro North Carolina in 2015. 

KG Denim based in India were chosen for their fabric innovation. They had developed a super 5oz denim with 2/1 twill, with a white pinstripe. The fabric content 98% TENCEL™ Lyocell/  2% cotton. 

Key details in our Carved in Blue® work wear shirt were:

  • Clean finished Run and Felled twin needle chainstitch seams construction throughout
  • Workwear pocket watch buttonhole 
  • Fabric enforcement on chest pockets. 
  • Period correct ecru stitching 
  • Period correct mis-stitching on all pockets 
  • Union Made period correct metal buttons. 
  • Branded ‘Carved in Blue®’collaboration woven label 
  • Curved collar with inside zigzag “VanDyke” stitching 
  • Collaboration branded square woven label on chest pockets with continuous stitch 
  • Curved darted sleeve, with ergonomic fit 
  • Darted back shoulder 
  • Shirt side gusset  

The Jeanologia team washed the garment based both ENDRIME® and Jeanologia Archive. This garment got a EIM low impact score of 25.

Check out our SHIRT section on Issuu.

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