Field shirt in linen burlap in dark navy

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£320.00 — ex VAT

Field shirt, made in London, with heavy (15oz) linen from Northern Ireland, and with dark horn buttons — removable ones — from the Midlands.

Sizing

The field shirt fits true to size. Take the mannequin here: the most standard 40 on Earth, and wearing size M. Bear in mind that if he was wearing this just as a shirt — rather than a mid-layer (as in, a light jacket over a shirt or sweater) — then S would be better.

XS S M L XL
To fit chest 36 38 40 42 44
Pit-to-pit 20 21 22 23 24
Back length 30½ 30¾ 31 31¼ 31½
Sleeve from centre-back 33¼ 33¾ 34¼ 34¾ 35¼
The field shirt is an unstructured shirt or structured jacket, depending on where you draw the line. It is, either way, your quintessential mid-layer. It is suitable over a shirt or t-shirt — with a capacious cut in the upper body — but is unlined and bulk-free, so can be sandwiched between your shirt and jacket.
The collar of the field shirt sits atop a full collar-stand, which itself has grown onto it a short throat tab. The tab is probably happiest undone — it isn't so long that it ever mopes around aimlessly — but can be whipped across to the opposite side to keep out the wind, or buttoned back on itself, out of sight.
The buttons are horn, and are dark in colour and matte in finish. Being as they're only a step or two from nature, each one is different, in terms of shade and marking. Those at the front are attached through eyelets and a metal ring — "butcher's buttons", sometimes they are called — and are thus removable.
There are two pockets on the field shirt, both at the chest. They are built into the chest-spanning seam that stems, in point of pattern-cutting fact, from the sleeve. One is a bellows patch; the other is an in-seam pocket, the stitching for which mirrors its counterpart. Bar-tacks strengthen the entranceways of both.
There's no arm or shoulder seam on the field shirt. No raglan, no in-set, no nothing. The absence of seam in the region means that the field shirt has the softest imaginable shoulder: for better or worse, it rolls over the outline of the wearer.
Strong little tacks abound on the smock, strengthening points expected to endure the most stress. The mouth of the pockets, for instance, or the pleat at the back yoke.
The cuffs are unusually squat: more coat-like in styling than shirt. They fasten with the help of an arrow-tipped tab and button. The relatively wide sleeve is pulled into this cuff with the the force of a gusset and the grace of a pleat — although the cuff is quite wide so the shirt is easily slipped off and on.
Linen of real character, this, rich with slub and bobble. While exceptionally heavy, it is also breathable, and held up to light can be seen to have a gauze-like airiness to its structure. It is a washed, so out goes the natural starchiness, and in comes a soft and comfortable handle.

As worn

The gent here is just north of a 38 chest, and is wearing the field shirt in size S.

Makers of

The field shirt is made by a coat factory in north London. Note: not a shirt factory. Rather than being made like a shirt but with heavier cloth, the field shirt is made to the same standards, and with much the same structure, as the most robust outerwear, with heavy fusing and turned seams and the like.
The cloth is woven by a linen mill, a few miles south of Belfast in Northern Ireland. The mill was built at the end of the 1800s, back when Belfast was "Linenopolis". That it's one of the last mills still standing in the area is testament to its exemplary work in the weaving, dying, and finishing of luxury-grade linen.
The horn buttons were cut, shaped, and polished by the last such factory in Britain (now defunct). It was part of a tradition in the Midlands first linked to the meat industry of the 18th century. "It is no easy task," said William Hutton in 1780, "to enumerate the infinite diversity of buttons made in Birmingham."

So they say

I received the wool field shirt as a present. Exceptional construction and aesthetic. It is robust enough for the elements but precisely contoured for formal presentability.

A response for which you dream when gift-giving. This man received the field shirt in uniform melton in late November 2019.

I like to wear my field shirt over a shirt. Perfect fit. I like the heaviness and thickness of the linen. Simply wow. Thanks.

Spoken by a gent in Japan who bought the field shirt in very heavy linen in March 2018.