5 Reasons Why Your Dress Shirts Should Be Cotton

In the past half a century the cotton dress shirt has undergone a few cultural and technological transformations. In the interest of convenience, non-iron and easy-iron versions of the dress shirt were invented so as to cut down the amount of maintenance time it takes for a man to get dressed. They have taken the form of polyester blends as well as chemically treated cottons in order to achieve this vision. Convenience doesn’t necessarily have to be the enemy of quality or elegance, but in this case the natural qualities of pure cotton, and the necessary maintenance required by them are worth keeping – even they are perceived as a hassle for some. Here’s why all your dress shirt should be made from cotton fabric!

1. Tested and true, the fabric of the ages, cotton breathes well and is soft against the body. While polyester blends and treated cottons might feel light at first, in reality it ends up being a heavier garment due to its lack of breathability, thus keeping heat and humility trapped against your body. This isn’t just a problem for Summer when we want to keep cool, as our skin needs to breath in Winter too in order to keep warm.

2. Cotton drapes well against one’s form and even if wrinkled after a long day’s wearing, it will always look better (even if it looks “lived in”) and will be more comfortable than its rigid chemically-treated non-iron counterpart.

3. Cotton is flexible. Treated with a formaldehyde resin, non-iron cottons are altered so that they remain stiff. While this might seem like a great idea, keep in mind that our skin absorbs the chemical into our systems. The stiffness can also be uncomfortable, but from an aesthetic point of view, that stiffness is undesirable because it sucks the life from the fabric’s appearance and natural drape. Moreover if one should want to wear a non-iron shirt casually (sans tie), rigidity isn’t a characteristic of casualness. You should be able to relax along with your shirt!

4. Cottons wrinkle (some more than others). Embrace the wrinkle. That’s right. Embrace it. If you like your shirt and you know it is a quality garment that fits great, a few wrinkles (mostly covered by one’s jacket) shouldn’t ruin your day. If you need to justify every wrinkle on your shirt, either chalk it up to your newly discovered spirit of non-comformity, or simply try to see it as a style thing. If someone comes up to you and says “Hey! I notice your shirt isn’t wrinkle-free…What’s up with that?”, you can always hand them an iron and ask them take care of it themselves.

5. Cotton is a tradition. Innovations are always welcome when technology can help us live better, however, some of them tend to forsake one good thing for another. Made of natural cotton, the collars of well made shirts roll with elegance and the shirt as a whole has a certain softness and fluidity. Until recently our forefathers got along quite well with untreated cotton. So can we. And we’ll look better for it!