Some years ago Alan returned from a French holiday with a particularly interesting linen sport shirt. At first glance it appeared to be a "popover" style, but the placket actually covered the lower buttons all the way down the front of the shirt. This has been loosely on my radar ever since then, and we're now offering our take on this popover + hidden placket design in our bespoke shirts line. We love that it captures the sporty pullover-inspired design, but with the function of a standard button-front shirt.
True popovers need to be worn a bit loose so they can be pulled-on over the head and shoulders – especially since there is no stretch in typical woven shirt fabrics. For folks who like their sport shirts on the fitted side, this is a nice way to achieve the same trim shape with the leisure-shirt styling. And, we think it's simply more interesting this way. We make it a couple of ways – a more traditional popover look with a 3-button front as shown on the blue stripe and solid blue shirts, and a slightly more eccentric extended 4-button front as shown on the solid pink. I'm partial to the 4-button front; it's just different enough to cause folks do a double-take.
This style is particularly nice in casual fabrics, such as the summer-weight oxfords shown pictured throughout this newsletter, our favorite old-school chambrays, or solid linens, voiles, and seersuckers.
With apologies to our made-to-measure clients, this design is only available bespoke.
