Linen shirting

[Minh]

A piece of forgotten menswear history is that linen was once considered the premier fabric for shirts. Henry Adams, the great American writer, notes in a 1910 letter to his brother that Edouard Charvet recommended linen over silk. Edouard was the head of Charvet, and the son of the founder:



Linen was the main shirt fabric offered in the Brooks Brothers' legendary 1916 catalog.



Cotton became more common only after World War I, which destroyed the Belgian linen industry. Mary Schenck Woolman, writing in 1920, observed the rise of cotton firsthand and pointed to the superiority of linen:



This extraordinary linen evening shirt was made for the Czar in 1900 and is currently owned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York:



http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the ... rch/156983

By 1958, linen was disappearing, even at Charvet:



My thanks to Michael for reviving linen and offering this particularly beautiful blue and white stripe.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10830&p=65683&hili ... ing#p65683

[Rob O]

Thanks for the very interesting commentary Minh, I have a length of that linen waiting to be made up!