Don't Go Overboard, Go Overshirt

Donning a hard-wearing, knockabout garment can always fill one with confidence. An item that’s meant to be worn in - not ring-fenced, mollycoddled, pampered or protected - leaves you feeling similarly without need of additional security: it isyour security, your garment-dyed cotton armour. You needn’t fuss or fret when wearing your favourite overshirt. To return ever-so-briefly to my laboured analogy from earlier on, in this respect the overshirt is again like our friend Cliff Booth. Treat it in a rough and tumble manner, put it through its paces, and it will always remain intact and indefatigably by your side - to paraphrase Rick Dalton, ‘You can do anything you want to it.’ However, please do use your discretion. We can’t guarantee that our overshirts will withstand some of the ordeals poor old Cliff weathers with aplomb.

How should I wear an overshirt?

Now, let us transition smoothly from utility, to versatility. How to wear an overshirt is a question we are often asked, but there is no one, single answer we can give. Rather, there are a multitude of answers, each pointing to one of the many rich and distinct possibilities of the overshirt. Firstly, there are the casual applications. Pair one with chinos, denim, wool flannels, fatigues, drawstring trousers, shorts: an overshirt makes a most agreeable upper-body counterpart to any of these diverse forms of legwear. An overshirt can sit on top of a shirt - the ‘overshirt-over-a-shirt’ - or a polo, or a t-shirt. Some particularly bold proponents have been known to wear one over nothing at all, right against the skin. While this is an advanced move, and we can’t safely recommend it for everyone, it would be a falsehood to say that we don’t condone it (in the right context, of course).

Then, there is the potential to dress up an overshirt. Who’s to say it can’t be worn over a shirt and tie? It’s a combination that harks back to the craftsmen and factory workers of the early 20th century, who would wear chore jackets and overalls on top of their suits. An overshirt can make for a stylish and easy alternative to a tailored jacket, lending an outfit some softness, and a rugged appeal, while sacrificing none of the sophistication.

The making of an overshirt.

Each Drake’s overshirt is produced in our dedicated factory in Chard, Somerset, using the same meticulous techniques that beget our now famous shirt-shirts. This includes single-needle stitching, floating interlining in the collars and cuffs, the finest horn and mother of pearl buttons, and fabrics sourced from some of the world’s most renowned shirting mills. We place emphasis on important details, such as elegantly shaped revere collars, bellows pockets, and knife pleats, to name but a few. It is these considerations that elevate our overshirts above the quotidian, the mundane. When safely ensconced in one of our overshirts, you are not merely your usual, workaday self. Rather you are a man of practicality, self-possession and sang-froid. A man with pockets, pockets containing everything the day could require.

Don’t go overboard. Go overshirt.

So the next time you slip on a Drake’s overshirt, bear these things in mind. Think about the quality of the garment you’re wearing, and its myriad sartorial possibilities. Don’t think too much about how to wear it, it is, after all, an item of clothing that should require little forward planning - such is the beauty of it. Just throw it over what you’re already wearing, if the weather looks like it may be changeable, and let it flow free. Don’t tuck it in, don’t even button it up. Just wear it with a sense of ease and sartorial reassurance, safe in its rugged embrace. Don’t go overboard. Go overshirt.

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