New & Lingwood - Shirtmakers, Hosiers and Shoemakers

Sticklers for convention, we always stretch the Christmas celebrations to Epiphany at Tweed Towers, happy to bookend the season with another little feast. But there's no denying it now - Christmas is almost over for another year. The party hat needs to be removed and the party blower furled. Happy New Year, by the way.

Happy New Year

Back to business. You may remember we featured a neckband shirt (pictured below) from New & Lingwood in our extremely popular Back to Work post? We received some typically well-mannered correspondence about it. People are curious about neckband or tunic shirts and are wondering whether to have a bash at wearing one. The answer is a qualified yes.

Shirt Intelligence - Simon Maloney,  Product & Marketing Director for New & Lingwood

Mrs T shared a pot of Harmutty Assam from Whittard's and a plate of Fortnum's Rose Biscuits with Simon Maloney, Product Marketing Director for New & Lingwood, to get the gen on tunic shirts and a bit of general shirt collar advice for good measure.

The shirts are made from two-fold 120s fine Italian cotton. The construction is non-fused, which is the traditional method of construction.

The shirts have their fans. 'Tunic shirts have a loyal but small customer base – usually barristers or true aficionados of English style,' explained Simon.

New and Lingwood offer many different styles of collar to attach to a tunic shirt, but Simon says of N & L's collar styles generally that popularity is split between the Milan collar on Tailored shirts and the Classic collar on their Classic shirts.

Shirt Collar Advice

Simon's advice on choosing shirt collars:

'To some extent, collar choice is personal but there are a couple of guidelines:

'A cutaway or extreme cutaway collar is best avoided if you have a rounded or fuller face as it tends to accentuate it. It would be best to opt for a more forward pointed collar to balance the overall effect. Equally, a person with a thin, long face should look at a semi spread collar, a Classic or Milan, to accentuate the profile rather than exaggerate it.

'When choosing a tie knot, make sure your choice fills the ‘tie-space’, that is, a Windsor knot for a cutaway – a small knot can look lost. And vice versa for narrow tie spaces.'