Grizzled mid-century mill workers in the American Midwest. Craggy-faced mechanics scuttling around the background of a Robert Frank photograph. Grungy rockers with substance abuse issues. The entire population of Twin Peaks.
What do all these seemingly-disparate people have in common? They’re all noted fans of the humble flannel shirt. Here’s some we’ve been buzzing off recently.
The first wearable bullet point on the agenda is the most traditional flannel shirt we’ve got in our armoury – the Pendleton Board Shirt.
Sporting the trademark spread collar and made from some hefty blanket wool, this is probably not only the warmest shirt on this list, but in the entire cosmos.
These have remained pretty much unchanged since their inception, and rightly so! It takes a certain amount of hubris to attempt to make something universally-adored “better”… sort-of like when some cocky DJ thinks they can remix Cher’s ‘Believe’. Morons.
Sticking with that el classico tip we’ve got the Organic Cotton Fjord Flannel Shirt from environmental evangelists Patagonia.
The big P’s dedication to Mother Earth is well documented on the website formerly known as Oi Polloi, so there’s no use us sounding like a broken record. We will say is this is one helluva flannel shirt though – it’s not everyday you come across something that embodies the holy trinity of desirable clobber qualities listed on the Cracking Clobber Criteria™ (good-looking, hard-wearing and well-designed, for those not familiar).
The s.k. manor hill Shirt Jacket – which is it fellas? A shirt? A jacket? Both?
Whatever it is, one thing is for certain: WE LIKE IT A LOT! Sort-of like if the Pendleton Board Shirt put down the axe and went off to an Ivy League uni to study architecture, it’s a stout little number that’s able to slot right into fancier settings.
Bare this in mind next time your ramble takes you to the doorstep of a Miller & Carter steakhouse.
All of Corridor’s shirts are worthwhile, but there’s something about this Floating Teton Flannel Shirt that’s really set our loins ablaze with the fires of passion.
The fabric is stout-yet-sumptuous, the design has a slight festive aura no good flannel should be without, and the buttons? Well, the buttons are just mighty fine, aren’t they?
Might sound a bit daft to some, but garmentologists will agree when we say that a shirt’s salt can be measured off the strength of its buttons alone.
And finally we arrive at the Curtis Shirt from Y.M.C.
These beauties have done quite the stint at Oi Polloi, and it’s not hard to see why – when it comes to the combination of high-class fabrics and eye-catching designs, the Curtis Shirt is damn-near unrivalled.
This iteration here is made from some woolly woven flannel stuff that’s an absolute delight to wear. If we were flamboyant Italian clothiers, we’d probably say ‘it drapes over your torso like the gentle caress of an experienced lover’… but we’re not, so we won’t.
Thirst still not quenched? Keep on scrolling to enter a shirty Shangri-La.