SHIRT 2.0

With the addition of playful embellishments, dramatic volume and deconstructed detailing, the white shirt has gone from being a minimalist style staple to a must-have sartorial statement

100th anniversary issue featuring 10 supermodels all dressed in unbuttoned white shirts that were tied at the waist.

Pre-2000s, the white shirt was a nod to the boys as it was predominantly oversized and minimal, with a “borrowed from my boyfriend” look. During this time, women took something that was previously masculine and often gave it a feminine twist by tying it at the waist and leaving it unbuttoned in order to reveal the décolletage. Now, in 2017/2018, the shirt comes in every shape, size and design, making it the ever more versatile style item every woman wants in her wardrobe.

When you look closely, the white shirt has come to mirror the defining trends of the moment, such as detailed embellishments and the off-the-shoulder and voluminous silhouettes that have ruled the runway over the past year. Trend forecaster WGSN attributes this to the recent rise in consumers’ need for personalisation in fashion.

“The shirt, it used to be an office must-have, a little drab, something you had to wear, not something you wanted to wear. But recently, the little white shirt has had a makeover. Consumer desire for personalisation in clothing has seen shirts come with embellishment, embroidery, and even styled with only one shoulder on,” says WGSN.

The white shirt can be seen as a metaphor for the greater fashion system and the consumer industry as a whole. The constant evolution of the garment signals the perpetual nature of the fast-fashion cycle, which is relentless in its pursuit and expectation of something new, on the part of designers and consumers alike.

However, the ever-changing fast-paced nature of trends on the runway means that everything comes full circle. Trends often work in equilibrium by ricocheting between opposite aesthetics. For example, millennial pink has now been superseded by the audacious red trend. So perhaps we can expect the next iteration of the white shirt to return to the minimal and be stripped back to its essential parts.

In fashion nothing is ever really new, just updated for the now. The white shirt will always be the white shirt, just with a few added bells and whistles and embellishments according to the season and the trends. It will always be a blank canvas with endless possibilities. But for now, the style hero is all about standing out and making a statement.