Popover in linen poplin in manila

¥45,400

Colours

Size XS S M L XL

The popover is true to size, and as such, the wooden and calico gentleman here, who has 40 right there on his chest, is wearing it in size M.

	XS	S	M	L	XL
To fit chest	36	38	40	42	44
Pit-to-pit	19	20	21	22	23
Shoulder	18	18½	19	19½	20
Back length	29	29¼	29½	29¾	30
Sleeve from centre-back	20	20½	21	21½	22

Popover shirt, made in London, with washed linen of middling weight (9oz) from a mill in Ireland, and horn buttons from the Cotswolds.

Can be many things, a popover, but surely they must always pop over the head (hence the name) and be alike in concept and function to a shirt. This one has an open, one-piece collar, as well as a fairly long, relaxed body, so that it may function as a useful mid-layer — over a shirt, even — from time to time.

The popover is open at the front, halfway down the chest, but it can be fastened, for the more conservative amongst us, with the help of a button halfway down, to gently cajole the two sides of the front together. Accordingly, the collar is softly pressed, so rolls out elegantly, rather than with a fixed break.

The popover has short sleeves, which end just above the elbow on mannequins of typical proportions.

The hem on the body is straight all the way around. There's a yoke across the upper back, into which is built a hanging loop. Lower down, meanwhile, are vents built into the side seams, which, while only a couple of inches high, increase by miles and miles the ease with which it can be lifted over a head.

This is a high-count weave of long-staple linen yarn, most notable maybe for having been given the proverbial once-over in a specialised washing and tumbling process at the mill. It has a dry hand, a rumpled texture akin to freshly laundered laundry, and floats breezily away from the skin.

As worn

Him, here, a card-carrying member of the 38 Chest Society — with a height of 6ft 1in and weight of 12 stone — is wearing the popover in sizeS.

Makers of

The popover is made by a coat and jacket factory in north London. Rather than being made like a shirt, as you might otherwise expect, the popover is instead made to the same standards, and with much the same structure, as robust outerwear, with heavy fusing and turned seams and the like.

The silk-linen is woven by a small, family-run mill on the south coast of Ireland. What really sets the cloth apart from (ahem) the run of the mill is the rigorous finishing methods — the secret recipe of softening and scouring and tumbling — which are applied once the cloth has left the loom.

The horn buttons are cut, shaped, and polished by the last horn button-makers in Britain. Relocated from the Midlands to the Cotswolds, they continue a tradition going back to the 18th century."It is no easy task,"claimed William Hutton in 1780,"to enumerate the infinite diversity of buttons made in Birmingham."