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What is a Guingham shirt?
What is commonly called gingham shirt is a shirt shaped in a gingham fabric, recognizable by its very small squares. A very particular motif that we find declined various colors, but whose red, blue and pink are probably the most common colors. Technically, gingham fabric is a plaid cotton canvas. It should be known that this is not a printed fabric, but that its pattern comes from a warping and screening effect with white threads and yarns dyed before weaving. The result is a screening of small regular tiles, usually 8 to 15 millimeters on a side.
Gingham fabric
It is called gingham fabric because it was originally produced in the vicinity of the town of the same name, sub-prefecture of the department of Allier, in the Auvergne region. This happened in the nineteenth century, during the reign of Napoleon III, while France began to industrialize and spinning mills were in full swing.
If the gingham fabric was initially used to make household linen - tablecloths, sheets, tea towels and napkins - it will soon be used in the manufacture of clothing. Indeed, as early as the 1950s, as ready-to-wear grew more and more, some couturiers seized it and designed skirts, dresses, blouses and gingham shirts. It could have remained an epiphenomenon as the history of fashion knows many, but it was not counting on the unexpected contest of a French star, not least, Brigitte Bardot!
On August 12, 1953, Brigitte Bardot made the front page of the famous women's magazine Elle. The one who is then a nascent star wears, on the cover photo, a pair of white gloves, a wicker basket on the arm and most importantly, a beautiful dress in pink and white gingham fabric. Fashion is launched, the gingham pattern becomes popular. But the true consecration of this fabric will not happen until six years later and through the same Brigitte Bardot.
On June 18, 1959, she married the actor Jacques Charrier and wears, not a white dress with train and chiffon as the tradition would, but a simple gingham pink and white dress with a collar Claudine. The garment, designed by the French stylist Jacques Esterel, will immediately become cult. It must be said that the Bardot of 1959 is no longer the Bardot of 1953! Between these two dates, she turned under the direction of Roger Vadim in And God created woman. Thanks to this film whose fame and reverberation were global, Brigitte Bardot went from being a starlet to being a real icon. Throughout the world, she now embodies the modern woman, the liberated woman and is undoubtedly the most admired French woman of both men and women. So that his clothing choices become real prescriptions. In addition, the day after the wedding, the magazine Elle, always him, publishes the pattern of his groom's dress. The effect is immediate, gingham becomes cult!
The fabric Vichy is definitely entered the pantheon of fashion in 1959, never to come out again. Fashion designers, stylists and other fashion designers seize it and soon, in addition to the dress and blouse, attributes of women's fashion, gingham arrives in the male locker room through the gingham shirt. And here again the success is as fast as it will be sustainable.
The gingham shirt
The gingham shirt is today a classic of men's fashion. If she is part of the family of plaid shirts, she still holds a place apart. Because, among all the checked shirts, the gingham shirt is undoubtedly the most elegant of all. It is indeed one of the few checked shirts that can be worn with a suit and a tie, provided, of course, to choose them as one in a sober and plain fabric. It is the smallness of the tiles of the gingham pattern that gives the vichy shirt this unique elegance. We could say that the gingham shirt is an anti-shirt lumberjack. Where the lumberjack shirt is totally street-wear, informal and rock, the gingham shirt is much more protean. It can indeed, as we said, be worn under a suit, but is also very elegant worn on canvas pants, a chino, or even a Bermuda shorts. We will wear it then taking care to roll up the sleeves, for a more casual effect.
We could also have fun defining two types of gingham shirts according to the color of its fabric. The most classic are pink and white, red and white, blue and white or black and white. But there are also declined in less classic colors, more lively and more fanciful: yellow, green, orange etc. all, always on a white background. And that's why the gingham shirt is protean. Depending on its color, it is formal or casual, sober or spring.
Add to that that gingham is a perfectly unisex fabric. It goes to women as well as men. That's why we find all kinds of gingham shirts. Here are some essential models.
The guingham man shirt
This is without a doubt the most elegant plaid shirt model one can find. In straight cut or fitted cut, the Vichy man shirt is a must-have piece of male locker room. It is as well open collar on jeans or a chino. In which case we can choose his gingham man shirt in any color, to the most lively and fancy. But if you want to wear a gingham shirt with a suit and knotted a tie, we opt for a classic color: blue gingham shirt, light pink, red, gray or black.
The vichy woman shirt
Gingham blouses are widespread and popular. It was therefore quite logical that the Vichy woman shirt also become a model very popular with the fairer sex. Let's not forget, after all, that it is to a woman, the sublime Brigitte Bardot, that we must have popularized the vichy fabric! On slim jeans, the vichy shirt with slim fit will be the most beautiful effect. Elegant, sexy but never vulgar, the gingham shirt is an asset to have imperatively in his wardrobe. A red and white or pink and white gingham woman's shirt will be a master card of seduction.
The big size gingham shirt
It is customary to say that tall, strong men are better off wearing plain clothes than patterned clothes. And it is true that the reasons do not put them necessarily value. But the big gingham shirt is an exception to this rule. Indeed, the small size of the vichy fabric tiles allows everyone to adorn themselves with elegance. It is the delicacy of this motif, its sober and regular preciousness that allows the Vichy shirt to perfectly suit men with a little overweight. The gingham shirt big size is therefore an alternative of choice for who wants to leave the classicism of the united without risking the fault of taste or the esthetic defect.
Polo shirts with vichy inserts
Until then, we do not find polos that are shaped in gingham fabric. And this, simply because the polo is traditionally made in a stitch of cotton, a fabric thicker than is the gingham fabric. On the other hand, there are some models of plain polo shirts that have gingham yokes: collar, lapels, swallows, as many small pieces that can be donned with the iconic patterned fabric. These little touches give the polo with vichy panels an undeniably fashionable look, while remaining perfectly elegant.
