Freenote Cloth‘s Drayton Chambray is a straight-up solid workshirt option for those who love the repros, or just love Good Shirts™. What’s a repro, you ask? It’s a reproduction. And in this case, it’s a reproduction of a vintage-style Naval work shirt. AKA a really good basic shirt that can be worn as casually as you want. You can even dress it up a little if you’re feeling fancy — some chinos and boots can elevate the short-sleeve shirt up the formal scale in a pinch.
Freenote always comes through with the nice details. In this instance, we’ve got double needle-stitch construction, “Engineer” style pockets, chain stitch sewn yoke and side seams with runoff, a nicely sized camp collar, pleats on the shoulder seams for extra articulation, and Japanese metal buttons. All of this stellar work is conducted in the USA and applied to a very nice and lightweight rinsed 8 oz. selvedge chambray milled in Japan, which will look better after countless washes and a whole lotta wear.
It’s safe to go true to size on this one, rinsed means it’s roughly as small as it’s going to get right now. Just don’t put it in the dryer – crack a beer and admire it drying on the washing line, knowing you won’t need another S/S chambray for many years to come.
Available for $160 at Franklin & Poe.
