I recently reviewed the Faherty Malibu Short, along with them, I also picked up a linen-blend shirt, the Short-Sleeve Stretch Summer Blend Shirt. I’ve given it a good test through the warm end of the summer and while not necessarily along the lines of what we normally test, it is a nice shirt.
Material
The fabric here is a 76% cotton, 21% linen, 3% spandex blend.
While stretch is in the name of the shirt, I didn’t find it apparent while wearing, but being a short sleeve shirt, that isn’t a huge deal. However, when examining the fabric by hand, their is definitely a little stretch in the horizontal direction.
The high linen content gives the fabric both the loved and hated properties of linen. The shirt is very light and airy. Of course, this also means the fabric wrinkles if you just look at it. To be noted here — wrinkles in linen look great in a casual situation if they are wrinkles from wearing it, but not so great if they are from it being packed in your bag. So this shirt is simply not for packing (unless you want to iron).
Fit & Style
Faherty is one of the brands of shirts that seems to always fit my body. Once you find one or two of those, you’ll be happy to continue being a customer. Not to mention, I also think the build quality is also above average.
Style-wise, this is a nice casual button-down for wearing untucked with shorts. I find the Mint Buffalo color I got pairs very well with my Navy Outlier New Way Longs (our review). Additionally, the texture of the fabric, a combination of texture from the linen and the weave of the fabric also lends to the casual look.
Performance
This shirt is built for the heat. The fabric is built to be light and airy and the linen only improves that. I wore this shirt on some warm summer days and it kept me cool, the only thing that might beat it is something made from Ramie by Outlier like the Ramienorth Pivot (our review) or Mojave Shortsleeve.
As far as odor resistance, I can get about two wears here. The shirt doesn’t dry too quickly though, so don’t plan on washing the shirt in the sink and wearing it again the next day.
Speaking of washing, I found the shirt to come out of the washer quite wrinkly and even after hanging to dry, it needs an iron.
Overall
Overall this is a nice casual summer shirt. It’s not going to ever be a travel shirt for me (unless I’m planning to wear it just once and on the first day), but it’s a nice one to have in my lineup for weekends at home.
At a full price of $128 I can’t recommend it due to the high cotton content — for not much more you can get a 100% linen shirt. However, if it hits the Faherty sale, it’s worth a look.
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