Blue Collar Days

Certain shirts are for certain seasons. Flannels are for fall and winter, linen shirts are for summer. Madras is for the warmer months, although lately I’m wearing my long-sleeve ones well into the fall. Other shirts are worn year-round. My oxford cloth button downs are worn under Shetland sweaters in February and unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up in July. But the shirts I wear most consistently throughout the year come from my ever-expanding selection of chambray work shirts.

Chambray is a plain weave fabric, woven with a thread count of 150-500 which makes it lightweight yet durable. Originating in the 1500s in Cambrai, France, it was originally a fine fabric woven chiefly from linen and used for shirting, lace, and garments worn next to the skin. By the 19th century, cotton had taken over from linen as the main shirting material, and the dense weave and easy laundering of cotton chambray made it a common material for workwear. At this time it also began to be woven using a colored warp and white weft, giving chambray its famous mottled look while also hiding stains and wear better than a plain white material would. As with denim, the color used was often - though not always – indigo blue. In 1924, the Times newspaper in Alden, Iowa used this indigo color to propose the shorthand term “blue collar” for laboring jobs, with the accompanying “white collar” designation for professional and office positions. A century later, this signifier is still widely used.

The classic chambray work shirt started out as a pullover style shirt, before transitioning to a fully button-front “coat-style” design as that pattern became more common for all shirts in the early 20th Century. As a garment intended to last through years of hard labor, work shirts featured many distinctive practical details. Seams were often double or triple stitched, and the yoke and elbows could be reinforced with a second layer of chambray to extend the life of the shirt as these areas wore out. Most shirts came with two breast pockets, cut large to accommodate notebooks or farmer’s almanacs, as well as tobacco and its paraphernalia for smokers. A distinctive detail that appeared in the 1930s was the cigarette pocket, sized for a pack of cigarettes and sewn with an extra layer of cloth behind it to prevent sweat from soaking through to the wearer’s cigarettes. These days, a cigarette pocket can be a good place to store wireless earphones.

As practical workwear has shifted from chambray and denim to poly-cotton blend twill or fireproof technical materials, these classic work shirts have transitioned from being must-have items for farmers and factory workers to fashion pieces. Along the way, many of the practical details were eliminated, such as stitched vent holes and double-thickness shoulder panels. Most chambray shirts from the late 20th century to today have smaller double breast pockets, while retaining double or triple-stitched seams to maintain the aesthetic of a hard-wearing shirt. These are a little less distinctive than the old-style shirts with their odd asymmetrical pockets and distinctive reinforcement, and are able to blend well with all styles of clothing. As strict rules of formality have changed, button down and even collared dress shirts are now easy to find in chambray. A more casual alternative to slick poplin dress shirt materials, chambray is an excellent alternative to oxford cloth in both casual and buttoned-up settings.

Whatever style of chambray shirt you have, it can be worn with almost anything else in your closet. An open-collar work shirt with a tweed jacket and jeans is a classically American look, while a chambray button down with a necktie pairs perfectly with a cotton suit or navy blazer. I’ll wear a work shirt tucked into chinos in a nod to both garment’s workwear roots, and in the heat of midsummer it’s great to throw on an open chambray shirt with shorts and a t-shirt to block the sun’s rays. Any outfit on the medium-to-casual end of the spectrum is a natural fit for chambray, and I love the capable-looking reinforced details on my work shirts, even if the hardest labor they’ll see is in the pick-your-own-apple orchard this Fall.

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Eric Langlois

Eric Langlois is a writer, menswear professional, and history enthusiast based on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

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