Category: Black Shirts

I avoided black shirts for years because I assumed they'd all be the same flat, slightly funereal thing, good for standing behind a till in and not much else. What changed was a cream blouse that went translucent under shop lighting at the worst possible moment, and the realisation that a decent black shirt would never do that to me.
The fit is where most of the disappointment happens. Buy it too tight and the buttons pull across the chest, leaving little gaps that show more than you'd planned, which on black is somehow more obvious than on any other colour, not less. Buy it too big and you lose the collar and cuffs entirely, so you're just wearing a dark bag. The cheap ones are usually a thin, slightly shiny poly blend that clings in exactly the places you don't want clung to and goes see through the first time you stand near a window. A proper cotton poplin sits away from the body, keeps its shape at the collar after a wash, and doesn't announce your bra through the back in photographs you didn't agree to be in. Try it sitting down, not just standing in front of the mirror, because that's when the gaping shows itself.
If you've none in your wardrobe at all, start with something plain and classic rather than anything cropped, sheer or heavily detailed, a straightforward button down in a proper cotton that you could tuck in or leave loose without either option looking like a mistake. Save the silky, slippery versions and the ones with cutouts for later, once you already know how a black shirt behaves on you.
It pairs with nearly everything already hanging up, which is less a boast than just how black works. Under a jumper so only the collar and cuffs show, with straight leg jeans and flat boots for an ordinary day, tucked into a skirt for something slightly dressed up, open over a plain top as a sort of soft jacket when the weather can't decide what it's doing. It doesn't fight with colour the way I half expected it to, it just lets whatever's next to it do the talking.
I'd have one hanging up, pressed, ready, long before I needed it.
Picked by Siobhan McCann. More in Shirts.