After 10 Years, My Favorite Chambray Shirt Got an Upgrade
I was wearing a light blue chambray shirt from J.Crew on the night I first met my wife. It was 2016, and I'd just turned 25. And, having bought the shirt with my first substantial freelance paycheck, I wore it everywhere: to interviews, on road trips and airplanes, on assignments, and, evidently, to dinner parties on the Upper East Side.
Amid the squall of untucked gingham shirts and Patagonia vests in style at the time, the textured ruggedness of chambray jumped out at me when I saw this shirt on the rack. It felt like something that belonged in the closet of Indiana Jones or Robert Redford rather than in my own. Something about the irregularity of its yarns and its not-quite-slim fit felt impossibly cool yet unpretentious, at ease without looking careless, elegant yet decidedly not fussy. It was, in short, everything I was not and everything I wanted to be.
For nearly 10 years, I wore this shirt, almost to tatters. Over time, the cloth faded to a pale, whitish shade of blue, the fabric at the elbows became almost sheer, and the hems started to unfurl. But I refused to give up on my longtime staple.
So I returned to J.Crew to buy a replacement, and in its place I found something new: a chambray shirt full of small improvements yet still bearing all the charm of the one I had bought in my 20s.
A refresh of a longtime J.Crew staple, this latest version comes with a few thoughtful upgrades and can be worn almost anywhere.
While the chambray button-down has been one of J.Crew's longtime staples, chambray itself predates the US as a country. It is one of two cotton fabrics that originated in France before being incorporated into American workwear and military clothing. The other fabric is chambray's doppelgänger, denim.
Unlike denim, which is woven in a twill (a fabric defined by its dimensional, diagonal ridges), chambray is a plain weave, more akin to the flat fabric of cotton dress shirts. Although chambray can be any color, it is usually woven from a combination of blue and white yarns; this produces chambray's signature two-toned, subtly cross-hatched, denim-like appearance. Compared with those of dress shirts, these bicolor yarns are also typically chunkier, which can give the fabric a more textured, casual appearance.
'It was never meant to be a dress-shirt fabric,' Carl Goldberg, custom shirtmaker and founder of CEGO, told me in an interview. (Goldberg recently made Walton Goggins's iconic aloha shirt for the third season of HBO's The White Lotus .) 'It was meant for workwear and military usage, but similar to the blue French worker's jacket, it became chic.' After nearly a decade of heavy wear and tear, my shirt has faded significantly. Alexander Aciman/NYT Wirecutter The gridlike appearance of chambray (top) and the twill, diagonal weave of denim (bottom). Alexander Aciman/NYT Wirecutter My 10-year-old chambray shirt beside its replacement. Alexander Aciman/NYT Wirecutter After nearly a decade of heavy wear and tear, my shirt has faded significantly. Alexander Aciman/NYT Wirecutter
J.Crew's chambray shirt has a button-down collar and is made from a crisp, lightly peached fabric. Its charm stems from that counterintuitive chicness Goldberg describes. Along with the unpredictable nature of the shirt's fabric, this quality makes it neither an oxford, nor a dress shirt, nor a western shirt, but something in a category all its own. The J.Crew button-down eludes simple categorization and is therefore one of the most versatile garments a person can own.
This shirt can be worn tucked or untucked, in summer and in winter, under a tweed blazer, or as a layer over a T-shirt. It can be worn with blue denim jeans — without looking like a Canadian tuxedo. And it looks no less at home worn with shorts and sandals at the beach than it does under a sweater with olive trousers. Style writers have long expounded on the virtues of clothes that can be dressed up or dressed down. But a chambray shirt is one of the few items that is capable of both simultaneously: It can be, at the same time, both Brooks Brothers and Levi Strauss. Chambray's texture pairs well with chunky knitwear in fall outfits. Rebecca Hartje The shirt's muted indigo blue is neutral enough to fit in with a range of other colors. Rebecca Hartje I feel the need. The need for tweed. Rebecca Hartje Chambray's texture pairs well with chunky knitwear in fall outfits. Rebecca Hartje
Due to its shapeshifting nature, this shirt immediately became a staple of my daily wardrobe. At times, every outfit I wanted to wear seemed to revolve around it — my chambray button-down was the foundation of how I wanted to see myself and how I wanted the world to see me. I searched for its limits — wearing it with everything from sport coats to black jeans to swim shorts — but I never quite found them.
Above all else, the shirt is flourishing as part of my travel wardrobe. It comes with me on every trip I take. If I have enough room in my bag for only one collared shirt, there's no doubt which one it should be. J.Crew's shirt is casual enough to be worn around any city and durable enough to act as a layer on light hikes or on chilly days. I particularly like having it with me in the event that I might need to look presentable — I've never felt out of place in a nice restaurant while wearing this shirt.
Because the shirt's fabric is made with thicker yarns than a standard flat-weave cotton shirt, it sheds wrinkles with ease; this allows me to wear it straight out of my bag, no need to iron. I've used it to put together a week of travel outfits without ever feeling like I'm wearing the same thing twice. And in a pinch, I've used it as a blanket or a pillow. Fuji Instax photos taken by my wife on our honeymoon, featuring my favorite chambray shirt. Rebecca Hartje Chambray makes an excellent summer layer, even when paired with swim trunks and Crocs. Rebecca Hartje Fuji Instax photos taken by my wife on our honeymoon, featuring my favorite chambray shirt. Rebecca Hartje
Time and probably hundreds of trips through the wash have softened the fabric considerably, imparting a plush, almost flannel-like texture that I find comforting. It has all of the traits of lovingly worn-in vintage items that boutique thrift stores list at exorbitant prices. It has aged with me over the past decade, and it's now an old friend; I am most myself in this shirt, and it is strange to think back to a time when it represented something alien and excitingly aspirational.
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