Western Work Shirt
This blog post focuses on design features for a newly releasing product. It is the third in a series of three blog posts focusing on design details for each of three new products coming to market in Q1 2022.
Western Work Shirt
This shirt was designed with several features in mind based on my experience wearing various work shirts, western shirts, and work jackets of all types of materials (denim, canvas, waxed canvas, flannel, twill, chambray, et cetera). The shirt focuses on timeless styling yet primarily on function over form.
Fabric
The fabric on the initial run is a USA manufactured 12 ounce deadstock selvedge canvas from the 1960s in Graniteville, North Carolina. It is olive in color and has a very course texture, much more course than modern canvas I have in shirts and jackets. This causes a few interesting characteristics. First, the fabric will develop aging character very quickly where creases in the fabric rub together. This will cause fast fading, faster than any denim I have experienced, even some of the Japanese milled denims I have experienced that are specifically engineered for fast fading. The course fabric also will collect indigo from raw denim if you wear raw denim over top, such as a raw denim jacket. This is subtle at first but it happens quickly. It can easily be avoided by not wearing a raw denim jacket in combination with this shirt. But if you like that kind of aging characteristic, the fabric collects indigo faster than any other fabric I’ve seen. Due to the mid-weight density of the fabric, it feels more like a jacket than a shirt and should absolutely stand any abuse you can throw at it.
Fit and Features
This is a slimmer fitting design, but the sizing runs big. You likely will need to size down a size from your normal shirt size. Possibly even two sizes. Carefully consider the size chart when you select sizing. While the tag sizing runs big, the torso has a slimmer fit once you do identify your proper shoulder and chest size. So again, please carefully consider the size measurements. The buttons on this shirt are jacket buttons. This was intentionally done to avoid threaded/sewn on button which have a tendency to loosen eventually, and potentially fall off and get lost. It does not use snap buttons like a traditional Western shirt. This is based on my experience of using slimmer fit Western shirts, and having the top snap button(s) come open when doing lots of movement and range of motion. These buttons never pop open like snap buttons. The upper shirting has a Western shirt yoke design on the shoulder. But instead of using traditional Western shirt snap button front pockets, the shirt has open non-flap, non-button front pockets for maximum ease of putting things into and taking them out of the front pockets. Usable pockets are important. When you combine all these features, you have a cross between a Western shirt and a work shirt. Also a cross between a shirt and a jacket. I probably should have named this the “Western Work Shacket” but that might have caused a lot of confusion since shacket is not a real word. So, Western Work Shirt is the name. Like the other products mentioned in this three part series, this shirt is meant to be worn, and worn hard. So I hope you wear it hard. When it eventually has some wear flaws and needs repairs, free lifetime repairs are covered!! Wear em hard!!!
This shirt is a designed and crafted partnership between Rugged Workwear – Heritage Quality Goods in Marietta, Georgia and Ciano Farmer Denim in Denton, Texas. This initial run will be a limited run of 12 garments due to fabric limitations. Keep a look out for more small batch design products from this partnership.
