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White Dress Shirt Advice

atlsart

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Alright guys, I need some input! My current go to white dress shirt is a BB non-iron slim fit, which I believe it in an 80 weight cotton. Being as that I'm rather athletically built I prefer not to wear undershirts as they are (a) visible under the dress shirt, and (b) tend to give me unwanted bulk under my dress shirts. Therefore, my white dress shirts tend to take on the pinkish flesh tones from under my shirt, and I am left to envy the beautiful bright white dress shirts I tend to see others wearing. Now what are my options to cure this without wearing white skin tight under armor
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. Would going to a 100 or 120 weight cotton dress shirt cure this? I have currently been considering the Thomas Mason fabric from mytailor.com, so does anyone know the weight of this fabric? Or how about the Borrelli's Ian sells? What have y'all done to cure this?
 

highball

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I have this problem too. I am hoping the white herringbone I just ordered will alleviate this. I think if you try and go with heavier weight shirtings, especially oxford cloths and twills, you would see a marked improvement. This is just my guess; hopefully someone can weigh in and confirm before I order any more white shirts.
 

InVinoVeritas

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Originally Posted by atlsart
what are my options to cure this without wearing white skin tight under armor
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Hey everybody longtime viewer of the fora. I'm actually very surprised a post like this hasn't come up before now as this is something I would imagine a lot of people deal with, and its something I would definantly like to hear more about. I know my oxford clothes do not show my skin pigment as does, say, my poplin dress shirts. From all these months of reading I know there are some exceedingly knowledgeable shirt guys out there, let's hear what you have to say.
 

joel_954

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Wear a gray undershirt under your white dress shirt. It won't reflect the light like a white undershirt does. BR and Gap make some nice ones.
 

Cary Grant

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Weaves and herringbones. And yes- a heavier cotton will make a big difference.

I have a few shirts being made right now and the two whites are a herringbone and a shadow stripe.
 

highball

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Originally Posted by joel_954
Wear a gray undershirt under your white dress shirt. It won't reflect the light like a white undershirt does. BR and Gap make some nice ones.

I actually notice that this makes the shirt more visible, showing distinctly where the shirt ends at my bicep. Although, this may be due to my fair complexion. I.e. my pale skin reflects more light and highlights the transition between the gray T-shirt sleeve and skin. Either way, I always wear white T-shirts with white dress shirts and gray T-shirts with colored.

I'm still curious to hear some of our resident fabric experts weigh in on which shirtings to avoid if we wish to eliminate the see-through dress shirt effect.
 

grimslade

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It has come up before. BB makes a Luxury line white shirt in a very opaque twill, although it's not cut as slim as the slim-fits.
 

FidelCashflow

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You just have to look at different thicker fabrics with different weaves. Hold them up against your arm to judge transparency. After many years of worrying about numbers, I've realized they're really just a waste of time to deal with. What's more important is weight, and feel of the fabric.

FWIW I have a thomas mason silverline which does pretty good against the transparency issue.
 

FrankDrebben

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I think it is luck of the draw, a few of my custom whites are great and a few clearly show skin through the weave. I have learned my lesson and now hold my fingers up behind the swatches before ordering.
 

Mr. Potato

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Originally Posted by FidelCashflow
You just have to look at different thicker fabrics with different weaves. Hold them up against your arm to judge transparency. After many years of worrying about numbers, I've realized they're really just a waste of time to deal with. What's more important is weight, and feel of the fabric.

FWIW I have a thomas mason silverline which does pretty good against the transparency issue.


What kind of Thomas Mason fabric weave did you get? How would you rate it compared to the fabrics offered by OTR?
 

FidelCashflow

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Originally Posted by Mr. Potato
What kind of Thomas Mason fabric weave did you get? How would you rate it compared to the fabrics offered by OTR?

It's hard to describe. It's almost like a real subtle white self-stripe that you can only see up-close, it's very narrowly spaced. I just remember it being in a Thomas Mason book (might have been silverline, or even regular Thomas Mason fabrics, I know for a fact it's not goldline.)

As far as quality goes, it's the only white shirt I've ever liked. I have yet to run across another white I like more at any price-point. It has a slight lustre when the light hits it, it's very soft, and has a good resiliency to wrinkles (for example when I tie my tie, it wrinkles up with tons of fine wrinkles like any other shirt, but after 15 minutes or so, it seems to relax some of the finer wrinkles out naturally.) I've had it for a year now and it still looks brand new.

It is 2-ply 120's, although that really doesn't tell you much. I tried to find it on mytailor.com which has a pretty massive selection of Thomas Mason, but apparently there's 180 white Thomas Mason fabrics there, so its like a needle in a haystack.
 

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