The Striped Shirt.

A stripe is only as good as the cloth carrying it, and there are two ways to put one on a shirt. A printed stripe sits on the surface and will, over enough washes, fade unevenly and go soft at the edges. A woven stripe is structure — the coloured yarn is part of the cloth — and it cannot wash out because there is nothing on top to remove.

Everything we cut is woven. The pieces we open most often are Giza cotton, the Egyptian extra-long-staple family, in navy grounds with either a fine white cord or a wider tan bar. Longer fibre means a smoother surface, which matters more on a striped shirt than a plain one: the stripe stays crisp at its edges instead of blurring as the cloth pills.

Our Söktaş cloths are the ones to ask for by name. The mill grows much of its own cotton in western Turkey and writes the Giza quality straight into the selvedge, which is as close to a guarantee as this trade offers.

Most advice on striped shirts stops at which suit to wear them under, which ignores the way they are actually worn for most of the week.

The pairing we would put first is a striped shirt with a light trouser — khaki, stone or beige chinos. A navy ground with a fine stripe above a beige trouser gives the eye a clean dark-over-light structure, and the stripe does the work that a plain shirt would leave undone. It reads as considered without reading as formal, which is exactly the register most offices now sit in.

A tan or gold stripe on navy is the version to reach for here, because it picks up the warmth of the trouser rather than fighting it. A white-corded navy is the cooler, more formal option and the one to wear when a jacket is going over the top.

The rule worth keeping is about value rather than colour: leave a clear step between the shirt and the trouser. A mid-tone stripe over a mid-tone trouser flattens the whole outfit.

Shirt stripes vary primarily in width and the ratio of colour to white. Understanding the character of each is the first step in choosing which stripe to commission.

The Bengal stripe — equal-width stripes of colour and white, typically 6–8 mm wide — is the most classic and the most immediately recognisable shirt stripe. It has a bold, energetic character that reads as confident and professional. Blue and white is the most classic combination; pink and white has a slightly warmer and more relaxed character; burgundy and white is richer and more assertive.

The bar stripe — a narrower stripe of colour on a white ground, typically 2–4 mm wide with wider white spacing — is more contained. A single navy or burgundy bar stripe on white reads as barely a pattern at any distance — it adds texture and subtle colour rather than overt pattern. This makes it the most versatile stripe: appropriate even in the most conservative professional environments.

The hairline stripe is the most subtle of all — a very fine single thread of colour woven into the plain ground at regular intervals. At a distance, a hairline-striped shirt reads as a plain shirt with a slight colour cast. Only on closer inspection does the stripe become visible. It is the most contained stripe and the most universally appropriate.

A striped shirt works with a plain suit and a plain tie, with a plain suit and a patterned tie, and with a very subtly patterned suit (a fine herringbone or birdseye) and a plain tie. The only pairing to avoid is a bold striped shirt with a boldly patterned suit — two strong patterns in close proximity create visual conflict that reduces the overall impact of both.

With a charcoal or navy suit — the foundation suits in any professional wardrobe — a blue Bengal stripe shirt and a plain tie is among the most correct and complete professional looks available. The stripe adds interest to the standard suit-and-shirt combination without moving it away from professional convention. With a tie, the most natural pairings are plain ties in complementary colours — a plain navy tie with a blue and white stripe, a plain burgundy tie with a pink stripe, a plain mid-grey tie with any of the blue stripes.

At The Black Lapel, we show clients the full range of striped shirting cloths from Thomas Mason and guide the selection based on what they already own. The relevant questions are: What are the primary suit colours in the wardrobe? What ties are worn most frequently? Is the working environment more or less conservative? What is the existing shirting wardrobe — are there already stripes, or is this the first?

The most common first commission for a striped shirt is a blue Bengal stripe — it works with almost every suit, reads as professional but personal, and is the most universally tested stripe in professional dress. The second commission is often a bar stripe in a different colour — burgundy or navy — that expands the range of the shirt wardrobe into a slightly more contained pattern. From there, the stripe vocabulary can be extended in any direction the client's wardrobe and preference supports.