Now that the hot weather is here, it’s absolutely time to breakout the linen shirts.
There is no better fabric to wear to celebrate the summer season.
The linen fabric fabric takes color beautifully, The whites are whiter, the blacks are true black, and every color in between is the richest version of that color.
Linen is light and doesn’t cling to the body. The actual structure of the linen yarn is open and allows for air to flow through the fabric.
When we first introduced linen, back in the early 80’s, people were uneasy about the purity of the fabric. People couldn’t get past the wrinkle factor.
Times have changed. Customers have been seeing and wearing linen for over thirty years. Linen weavers have come up with many different ways to interpret this fabric. Here are some of the new ways linen is blended to create new effects in color, touch, and weight:
washed linen, linen and cotton, silk and linen, wool, silk , and linen,
and now, linen mixed with aloe... It’s buttery soft and comes in a wide array of colors.
While we may only think of linen as a one-dimensional fabric, it’s truly come around since the early 80’s.
How to wear linen-
Linen pairs nicely with cotton pants, linen pants, and even a lightweight wool pant.
For those of us that would like to have some linen in our work shirts, we suggest a linen and cotton blend. This makes up beautifully and has less wrinkle than a 100% linen shirt.
About three months ago I was at the Racquet Club and ran into one of Philadelphia’s premier attorneys.
Not only is he a top-notch attorney, but a great dresser as well. He told me that, in the summertime, he wears linen and cotton blended shirts. This fabrication allows for a lighter wearing shirt as well as a shirt that tailors nicely and works well for court.
Of course we see linen used in sport jackets, suits, outerwear, and even luxurious bed sheets.
It’s a very practical fibre, it’s strong, absorbent, fast drying, and exceptionally soft to the touch.
For those of you that don’t have a few linen shirts in your closet, it’s defintely a good consideration when building a balanced summer wardrobe.
Care of your linen shirt-
Recently, we spoke to Jamie McCormick one of the namesakes of the McCormick Brothers dry cleaning and laundering service ouf of New Jersey.
Jamie tells us that most times linen shirts are laundered, not dry cleaned. The laundering of a linen shirt is predominantly about the pressing. Linen shirts do not get pressed the same way as cotton shirts. They use a ‘cool press” which is a catch phrase for more of a hand-done process with an iron set at a cooler temperature. Contrast that with a 100% cotton shirt which is done with irons set at high heat and used with high pressure…