The London Lounge

Can anyone recommend fabric books for casual shirts. By 'casual' I mean denim, chambray or perhaps brushed cotton.

I have generally used Thomas Mason in the past but TM is quite formal and has extremely limited casual styles.

Any recommendations would be welcome.

There's some nice brushed cottons at Acorn Fabrics at the moment. I'm waiting on samples.

The Acorn fabrics are great.
Something you might like to try if you want to have hardwearing casual shirts to be worn without a jacket, much as you would a denim shirt, is to look at the lightweight cotton or linen trouserings. These would work for any sort of casual shirts, upto and including safari jackets.

As far as chambray, Simmonot Godard offers this fabric in a wide range of beautiful colors including in addition to several shades of blue also pink, salmon, lemmon yellow and light green.

Angelo

Sartorius_2 wrote: Can anyone recommend fabric books for casual shirts. By 'casual' I mean denim, chambray or perhaps brushed cotton. I have generally used Thomas Mason in the past.

Dear Satourius_2,
if you are fond of Thomas Mason, then you don´t have to stray much away from it to find ideal denim/chambray for casual shirting.
Thomas Mason is part of the Italian Albini Group, which also includes the almost 200 y.o. Albiate mill in Milan.
Some Japanese mills have done a great job with denim/chambray, but Albiate´s IMO is the best I have found so far. Their book has a large selection of shades, weights and textures, mixed with linen, silk, etc. Refined enough to be worn under a tailored jacket and also apt for more casual rough wear. Sorry if I sound like an add but for me it has been quite a discovery and I´m happy to share.

I have seen rolls of nice chambray with the edge marked Albini and I know someone that had a shirt made of it and is very happy, however at the times there were no many shades available.

Apparently the current rustic Sommonot Godard Chambray is a Poly-cotton mix and having been gifted a cut lenght I would never dream of having a shirt made out of it

hectorm wrote:

Sartorius_2 wrote: Can anyone recommend fabric books for casual shirts. By 'casual' I mean denim, chambray or perhaps brushed cotton.

Albiate´s IMO is the best I have found so far.

Important update: if using Albiate´s denim for shirting, be sure to tell your shirtmaker to allow a bit more than usual for shrinking (unless the cloth is pre-washed in hot/warm water).