A while back Taylor Stitch created a sub-brand called “Civic” which focused heavily on selling Merino wool based clothing, using the brands classic but modern styling. The go to item in that collection is what they called the Jack shirt, made from Merino 4S fabric.
This shirt, which is on last call now, is one I have been wanting to test for quite so time. So I picked it up and gave it a spin, it seems the entire line is being discontinued so act fast if you want one.
Material
As I mentioned, this shirt is made of a custom Merino 4S fabric which is listed to contain: 70% merino wool/30% Sorona with a 220 gsm fabric weight. Sorona is a partially bio-derived synthetic fiber that is described as the best of polyester and nylon.
But to be honest, it could be 100% wool and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, so good on them for reducing wool usage I guess. This shirt feels almost exactly like the Wool&Prince button down shirts we love (our review), with slightly less stiffness to the fabric.
Fit & Style
I picked this shirt up in Stone Green Chambray, it is a fantastic color which I have found overly difficult to pair with pants. It’s too medium in color, so much so that it is too close in shade to my khaki pants, and not quite light enough to wear with my darker pants. As it is I tend to wear it with dark gray Outlier Futureworks (our review).
The fit is very trim, with the 42 being just large enough for me to wear. I find the sleeves also barely long enough, and wish they had tall sizes. More than any of that, the body length on this shirt is very short, making it great to wear untucked, but a tad tricky to wear tucked in. Depending on what you buy this shirt for, this is awesome, or terrible.
For me this placed the shirt in casual, non-office, wear scenarios. It looks sharp for that.
In addition to the cut, the Merino 4S, is a bit slouchy in appearance. Such that the collar has a classic Oxford rumple to it, as does the placket and cuffs. This makes the shirt look more casual, even when steamed free of all wrinkling. Again, this fits with the cut of the shirt quite nicely.
This is one of my favorite looking casual merino button downs.
Overall
Typically we write a section for performance, but I’ll instead skip that with this shirt. It has no stretch, and is 70% merino wool — it performs like a 100% merino shirt. Generally you get a few wears out of it, and it doesn’t wrinkle too badly.
Instead, I will say that I am surprised to see these shirts being discontinued. The fabric and price points are great, the cut is even better. If they cut it in long, I could easily see this being something I wore to the office more. As it was the tail length was tricky to navigate commuting in a car and working in an office — too much potential for the shirt coming untucked.
That said, it will certainly be a shirt I toss in my bag when I am traveling somewhere an want a versatile button down shirt. I like it, and its too bad it is on its way out. That said, you can pick them up for a solid price right now.
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