My blue heaven

Chatting to denim dynamo Tim Browne not long ago, I was bemoaning the fact that it seems impossible to find a good chambray shirt these days. In its classic construction, this plain-weave mid- or light-weight cotton fabric has an appealing hue thanks to the blend of a blue warp (the threads running north-to-south in the cloth) and a white weft (the horizontal threads). Tim promised me he had one in the pipeline for his new brand Blue Collar Worker.

Good as his word, ex-Levi’s designer Tim delivered this fine item to me recently. Thanks, Tim! It’s got the sort of good generous cut I like, just enough practical workwear details and – praise be – the logo is printed discreetly out of sight on the long front tail. I am wearing it here with my dark-wash Carhartt wide-leg jeans and an Armadillo Merino undershirt.

I am going to get a lot of wear out of this well-constructed Blue Collar Worker shirt, which will find plenty of indigo-dyed company in the Musgrave wardrobe.

This is not only double denim – it’s double G-Star Raw Essentials denim – two really excellent pieces from the Dutch masters of jeanswear. The shirt fabric is particularly interesting, displaying lots of horizontal flecks. The jeans wash results in a particularly intense blue.

I like the shade contrast here between the slim-fit Wrangler shirt and the vivid blue of the Candiani jeans that I had made for me at Bread&Butter last summer. (Candiani is an Italian denim mill that was creating customised jeans at the Berlin fair, as explained towards the end of this blog).

Another option for a warmer day is the pale blue chambray-esque (hurrah!) Wrangler shirt with the lightweight Candiani jeans.

Currently, my oldest denim shirt is this loyal favourite from Wrangler, which has become so washed out over maybe a dozen or more years that it sometimes needs the lift from the red 5-pocket jeans from Boggi. The bandanna is from the Swedish brand, Denim Demon Jeans.

Woolrich provided me with another near-chambray quality in a very useful grey-blue shade. I like the utilitarian look of it with a pair of white Levi’s Sta-Prest pants.

Another version of double denim – Woolrich shirt and G-Star Raw Essentials jacket.

And why not triple denim? In this instance, my new Blue Collar Worker shirt, Carhartt jeans, and my old Blood & Glitter jacket. Even the bandanna has indigo roots – it’s from The Rising Sun Mfg Co in LA. The herringbone-patterned silk cap is from Bates in Jermyn Street.

My mild obsession with denim has a long history. This 1980s favourite was from Replay – today a good black denim shirt is hard to find. I wish I still had this one. (The Wayfarers date back to when Ray-Ban didn’t insist on having that bloody annoying and unnecessary logo on the arms!)

This photo was taken at Annandale, Minnesota on 4th July 1976, so I was in a Levi’s double denim outfit to celebrate the USA’s 200th birthday. The shirt once had long sleeves, so it was quite ancient by this time.

This pic reminds me of Hardy Amies’ pungent assessment of denim jeans in his 1964 work, The ABC of Men’s Fashion: “Jeans are more attractive when well worn, being made in a cloth of a colour and texture which is improved by frequent rough washing, as are most peasant clothes.”

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