At Prada, even the dinner shirt is casualised. It's not a bad look. Not at all
By Ray Zhang
Sometimes, I want a dinner shirt without a bib front; I don't want a collar, too—even tiny wing tips. Heck, I don't even want a round neck on it. Better still, no collar stand. I have been thinking about this shirt, and even looked for it, but it did not exist. Until now. While waiting for a friend for dinner just a couple of days ago, I wandered into Prada to kill time. It is always a store I have no objection going into, even if I have nothing to buy. It helps that the staffers do not have a habit of making their presence totally palpable. That evening, I was quietly greeted by the usual selection of clothes characterised by their unmistakable minimalism. I flicked through a black pyjama shirt in silk (it was not talking to me) and a cream-coloured cotton shirt with two stalks of appliquéd shadowed roses, rising from near the hem and flanking the placket like vertical paranthesis. And then, there it was, the shirt I was ready to go into a matrimonial union with!
As it turned out, the dinner shirt I have been thinking about is very much in existence. I lifted it from the rack and it quickly went into seduction mode. The cotton poplin is a joy to the touch, but it is the lack of all those details I mentioned earlier that really, really appealed to me. Sure, there are those pleats on both sides of the placket a seamless piece that included the collar), which added graphic lines—like fringing—beneath that high V-neck (which made it less like a baseball shirt), but that did not bother me a bit since I was in the market for a dinner shirt. On a mannequin behind me, the shirt was worn under a blazer, also with a V-neck. There was something monastic about the two together, and it was swell. I soon spotted my friend outside and beckoned him to join me in the store. I showed him the shirt, and before I could say anything, he cried: "Get it!"
Just don't expect me to wear it with Y-fronts.
Prada shirt, SGD1,890, is available at Prada stores. Photo: Prada
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