The Ultimate Non-Ultimate Guide to Shirts
From €1 to infinity
Welcome to the fourteenth edition of Not I, a wordless series appearing every Friday or Saturday in which I share a selection of the pre-owned items currently on my personal favorites list. It’s style experimentation, deep-dive thrifting, and instant fashion-universe-expansion all wrapped up into one browsable unit. Read more about the idea behind the series here.
Today: shirts stand to a wardrobe as water stands to thirst. That’s a fancy way of saying they’re an absolute necessity, up to the point of being a fundamental condition for existence — spring, summer, fall and winter. Yet, what holds for fresh water unfortunately doesn’t hold for good shirts: it’s a crime against humanity to commodify the former, whereas the latter seem to become more exclusive every single day. This guide is here to help you stay sane and alive. Notwithstanding what the internet tells you, there’s no such thing as an ultimate guide. But what’s the point of a guide if it doesn’t at least aim at ultimation? I’ll let the title deal with this rhetorical question.
This is what’s in it (for you): 65+ pre-owned shirts, organized in 5 categories with prices arranged from low to high — going from a €6 Renoma up to a €1800 Ziggy Chen. There are contemporary brands, some of which are well known, others not so much, or not yet. There are household names so familiar you’ve probably forgotten about them, if you’re anything like me. And, all in all, there’s everything from staple to rarity, button-up to open collar, linen to silk, gingham to crinkle, and tie to botanical dye. Last but not least, maybe because of the weather, or maybe because I just feel like it, this edition is free for all subscribers.
Happy quenching!
Under €50
NN07 - ‘Levon Shirt’ (€35)
Frank Leder - Reversible Shirt (€40!)
€50-€100
Marithé & Francois Girbaud x Closed - Silk Rusty Pink Striped Shirt (€78)
Mfpen - Black Work Shirt (€80)
Suzusan - Tie Dye Shirt (€90)
€100-€200
Polyploid - Linen Overshirt (€145)
Auralee - Cotton/Silk White Shirt (€150)
Man-tle - R4S1 Shirt Orange (€160)
Comoli - Denim Shirt (€180)
Bergfabel — Organic Cotton Shirt (€190)
Visvim - Kerchief Border Tunic (€195)
Seya - Eternal Shirt Brown (€195)
€200-€500
Jan Jan Van Essche/O-Project - Linen Bomber Shirt Grey Herringbone (€212)
Helmut Lang - Cargo Shirt Black (€240)
45R - Linen Open Collar Shirt (€250)
Kapital - Soft Linen Open Collar Orange Short-Sleeve Shirt (€285)
Camiel Fortgens - Pocket Shirt (€300)
Loro Piana - Andre Linen Shirt (€300)
€500-infinity
Saint Laurent - ‘Surf Sound’ Pink Bleached Raw Hem Shirt (€525)
Ma+ - Summer Linen Shirt Natural (€660)
John Alexander Skelton - Denise Gingham Plaid Short-Sleeve (€695)
Louis Vuitton x Virgil Abloh - Oversized Orange Shirt (€800)
Ann Demeulemeester - Pink Shirt (€850)
Paul Harnden — Easy Shirt Moths (€1600)
Ziggy Chen - AW24 Coarse Linen Dirty Dyed Long Shirt (€1820)
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading and for your support!