Which is the best dress shirt to buy?

You might see some unfamiliar terms and phrases when it comes to men's dress shirts. After all, dress shirts are a little different to the standard shirts usually worn by men, and so there are a few extra things to consider when buying a dress shirt.

Dress Shirt Colour

The standard colour for a dress shirt is white. White, white white. It is the smartest, and by far the most popular. Anything else and you are risking looking like a 1970s comedian or mobster, depending on the quality of your jokes perhaps. Everything else in men's evening wear attire is made to go with a crisp white dress shirt.

Studs or Buttons

Unlike a standard men's shirt, a dress shirt can come with either buttons or studs, for fastening the shirt at the front. A dress shirt with studs is probably considered more formal and smarter, although the choice is entirely the wearer's own.

Wing Collar or Standard Collar

Originally formal evening wear for men consisted of a shirt with a wing collar, usually removable. This fashion style has remained, although they are usually no longer removable. It is probably more popular to choose a dress shirt with a standard collar these days, but plenty of people enjoy the wing collar look. Again, the choice is entirely down to the wearer, although some social occasions, such as a wedding with formal Morning Dress, may require a winged collar shirt, sometimes with a white bow tie, for example. For those who prefer more of a James Bond look, a standard collar is the way to go.

Plain or Pleated Bib

Another choice is whether to go for a dress shirt with a plain or a pleated bib. The bib, as you might have guessed, is the chest area of the shirt. In times when collars and bibs of a dress shirt were removable, the bib was made with a different textured look to the rest of the shirt. Again, this fashion has remained, in a slightly modified form, resulting in dress shirts with pleats, ribbed or honeycomb textures bibs. Below is a white dress shirt with a pleated bib. It also has double cuffs (for cufflinks), a standard collar (not wing collar) and stud fasteners. For today's black tie occasions, this is the classic look for a dress shirt, available from Charles Tyrwhitt.