Men's Shirt Development

• The present form of men's shirt could be pinpoint when Brown, Davis & Co. of Aldermanbury registered the first shirt with buttons all the way to breast in 1871.
• Previously in the 18th century, shirt is considered as underclothing and therefore until today it's a fashion faux pas for a man to take off his jacket uninvited especially in the presence of ladies.
• Before the end of 19th century, the white shirt is the epitome of elegance for men as it symbolizes the upper class men who don't have to really dirty their shirt from laborious work.
• It's also signify that they are rich enough to get them wash and change them regularly.
• At the end of 19th century, striped shirts was introduced with unfortunate reviews because it seem like a way for men to avoid the cleanliness issues. But later it was accepted as a norm to men's wear.
• As a compromise, patterned and colorful shirts equipped with white collar and cuff were also intoduced which is still popular to this day.
• Collar designs can be fundamentally group into 1)Stand-Up Collar 2)Turndown Collar.
• By the end of 19th century and early 20th century, the stand-up collar was gradually replaced by turndown collar and in the 1930s, stand-up collar was only been worn with tuxedos and tailcoats.
• Detachable version of both collars were also introduced. This gives the owner the advantage of only washing the collar and one shirt could be used with different collar designs. The downside of it would be the task of buttoning and unbuttoning the collar.
• A men's shirt currently has not changed since World War I. The only feature added was the breast pocket which actually has no function at all except as decoration purposes.