Men's Camp Collar Shirt

Look at where the collar meets the neck and you have the definition. A camp collar has no stand, the upright band that lifts an ordinary collar off the shoulders. That means it lies flat and opens into a notch at the top. No button sits at the throat, because there is nothing there to fasten.

Removing that stand changes the whole shirt. The collar cannot rise at the back of the neck, so it settles on the shoulders and frames the chest instead of the face. Bodies are cut boxy and straight, hanging off the chest rather than following it, and the hem finishes short and even at the hip, since tucking a boxy shirt only bunches it at the waist. Sleeves usually stop short and run wide. Cloth then decides the register. Rayon and viscose drape heavily and take bold prints, linen and cotton read cleaner and cool better. A stiff heavy cotton in this cut looks like a box.

Under a jacket the gap from the Oxford Cloth Button-Down Shirt shows immediately, since a stand keeps that collar visible at the neck while this one disappears and rides up. The Linen Shirt with a conventional collar cools the same and can at least be buttoned to the throat when the wind turns. An Overshirt borrows the same boxy body in far heavier cloth for the opposite season. On formality, nothing in this category sits lower.

Above 80 degrees, on vacation, and through city evenings in July, it is the most comfortable shirt you can wear with buttons on it. Broad shoulders carry the flat collar well, and men who never tuck lose nothing here. Short necks do less well, because a collar spreading sideways shortens the throat further. Any office with a written code rules it out, and so does wearing it under a blazer.

Lay the shirt flat on a table and study the collar: it should sit completely flat with no ripple, since one that puckers unworn will never lie right on you. Check the hem against your hip, because two inches too long turns a boxy cut into a smock. Read the fiber line for rayon, which shrinks and water spots, and hang the shirt rather than folding it, as a flat collar creases where it is folded and the mark shows.