For many of us looking to streamline our wardrobes finding the perfect shirt is a constant struggle. First allow me to clarify what I mean by “the perfect shirt”. For me it’s one that has enough formality to be worn with a jacket and tie, still look neat when you take off the tie but keep the jacket on and also look right when you wear the shirt dressed down without a jacket or a tie. Rarely do you find a shirt that works in all these situations. Allow me to explain. When worn with a suit and tie, a business shirt with a crisp, stiff collar is what you need but often when you wear the same shirt without the tie, the collar stays stiff but the shirt placket rarely has enough body to keep the collar from collapsing under the jacket lapels. The look most of us try to go for when off duty is “elegantly casual” with a suit and two buttons undone on the shirt, the result though, without the right shirt, often lacks some polish with the shirt collar often being swallowed by the jacket lapels.
Scenario 2: a shirt with an elegant collar roll (think 1-piece collar or cooper collar) looks wonderfully elegant with a jacket propping up the collar but without the jacket there to hold the collar up, you lose the beautiful upright collar stance and soft collar roll as this type of collar tends to splay flat against the shoulders without a jacket to hold it up. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a 1-piece collar without a jacket, but it may be an acquired taste for many. Not to mention a traditional 1-piece collar is not really designed to be worn with a tie as an option.
Which brings us to scenario 3: casually wearing a shirt without a tie or a jacket. An inherently casual use case but you’d still want the collar to be standing at attention in all but the most casual of settings. A single shirt that works in all 3 scenarios has been tough to find and is somewhat of a holy grail for most of us, but as I found out, Ascot Chang has cracked the code with what they call “The Ascot Collar”.
Ascot Chang and their reputation as a premier tailor will not be news to most of us. After all Mr. Ascot Chang founded his shirt making business in Hong Kong in 1953 and the atelier that carries his name since gone on to be one of the most revered luxury shirtmakers for the past 73 years. That they offer a wonderful bespoke shirt experience is again nothing new. Ascot Chang has been outfitting gentlemen in every type of shirt there is for seven decades, but I discovered, since 2022, they have proffered a design that solves all our most puzzling of collar conundrums: The Ascot Collar.
The Ascot Collar or Collar #53 in their catalogue, is essentially a hybrid 1-piece collar. The wide front placket flows continuously into the integrated neckband but with the collar leaf itself sewn on separately. The result is pure magic. You get the stiffness of a “business collar” but it still has that beautiful collar roll when worn open. Here is a shirt that works with a suit and tie, but because of the way it’s constructed the same shirt looks wonderfully elegant worn “off duty” without a tie, The shirts construction keeps that collar at attention without the overly stiff look of a pure business shirt. But the same shirt without the suit jacket still looks neat as the collar stands on its own. I opted to have mine done in a powder blue cotton-linen shirting fabric by Thomas Mason with a very subtle monogram at the waist. The result was absolutely brilliant and solves the one-shirt/different scenarios problem. It’s a shirt design that crosses from business formal to off-duty business casual to easy casual and has solved the riddle of a shirt that can do-it-all. I can’t recommend it enough save for one very big problem. Now that I’ve tried one, all my other shirts just don’t seem right. Gentlemen, the perfect shirt does exist, and you’ll find it at Ascot Chang.