There are a few key areas of a shirt that make wearing it more enjoyable and many people choose the custom shirt route to get a better fit and specific styling. One of the areas that the more experienced shirt buyer looks for is the structure and lightness of the fabric. Good quality shirting is always 2 ply cotton, which is made from two fine strands wound together and then woven to create the shirting. Using 2 ply cotton results in a softer and silkier fabric that is more comfortable to wear.

The quality of 2 ply cotton is determined by the diameter of the thread. Finer cotton has a higher number (this is not the same as thread count). Generally 2 ply that is 80 and above is very good quality shirting, and once you start to get towards 200 the fabric is extremely soft and becomes more delicate and wrinkles easily.

Understanding and appreciating good fabric is an important aspect of designing the custom dress shirt that suits you. At Lewis and Taylor they have industry leading fabric selection screens, allowing not only the count of the cotton to be chosen but also the weave. As Ed Rossiter, the CEO at Lewis and Taylor, muses, “By using a high quality fabric in the trial shirt we at Lewis and Taylor are hoping that our customers will also start their journey towards becoming fabric junkies.”

Lewis and Taylor