Shape up: meet the designers reinventing the classic shirt

A trio of designers across Europe are focusing their ingenuity on deconstructing and reassembling the hard working – and all too oft undervalued shirt silhouette.

Aude Castéja worked in the marketing department at Parisian fashion house Céline, before founding shirting brand Monographie. Launching at the end of last year, the label is already stocked by the likes of Browns in London, Japanese department store Tomorrowland and US behemoth Barneys.

The international appeal? Castéja has taken the classic shirt silhouette and reimagined it: sleeves are either lost or restructured with stiff cuffs and fluted shapes, necklines are dropped and shoulders revealed, while sharp pleats and contrast trims are introduced. All of this is done in a palette of navy, black and white. While Monographie’s designs are rich in detail they are anything but fussy. Next season sees an evolution into summer dresses.

Named after ‘dunas’, the Spanish word for sand dunes, Madrid-based brand Sunad is the brainchild of Parsons graduates Ana Marroquín and Paloma Canut. Founded in 2015, when the duo had returned to Madrid from New York, the label's creations are designed, cut and assembled in Spain, and made using natural fibres. There is a Saraharan sweep to the silhouettes, which are imagined in sandy and organic hues, and include polka dot and tactile striped details, and insouciant belted styles which riff on the safari jacket.

Geoffrey J Finch, the former creative director of London-based brand Antipodium, launched Blouse earlier this year, exclusively on Matchesfashion.com. The brand’s gender neutral designs, which include witty yet wearable shirt styles, intermingled with more streetwear focused bucket hats and sweatshirts, are released online in a series of bi-monthly drops. These shirt shapes are crafted from buttery leather, velvet-trimmed silk crepe and reverse chambray. Silhouettes are styled with nautical rope belts, imagined in sugary shades of pink and blue, and elevated with knotted or dislocated cuffs. Talk about getting us hot under the collar.

INFORMATION

Fore more information, visit the Monographie website, the Sunad website and the Blouse website