Hemden Herren

A.P.C. was founded in Paris in 1987 by Jean Touitou. The men's shirt in the collection today runs to a plain line and a button-down collar, in colours drawn from ecru, indigo and navy blue. Which one to take comes down to the collar, the cut and the register the fabric opens up.

Men's shirts begin with the collar

A.P.C. gives a good number of its men's shirts a button-down collar, and the Greg shirt is where it is clearest. The Atelier, Production and Creation offers it in organic cotton, in plain white, in pale blue and in a white ground with blue stripes. A collar like that sits flat under a lapel, which is why the Greg goes as easily under A.P.C.'s men's jackets as it does on its own. Open at the neck, it looks plainer.

The collar also settles how a shirt takes a layer. A button-down holds its shape under a fine-gauge jumper, and the Greg keeps the neckline clean where the two meet. A.P.C. makes overshirts alongside these shirts: recycled wool in navy blue and light grey, canvas in brown. Those go over the shirt rather than under it, and are heavy enough to serve as the outer layer on a mild autumn day.

The cut of an oxford shirt for men

Cut is the second question, and the oxford shirts for men are the clearest place to take it up. A.P.C. cuts two of them in oxford, one in blue and one in khaki, and the cloth has real body to it. That weight is what gives the shirt its line, and what sets it apart from a poplin. Both sit well tucked into wool trousers for men, where the Greg reads as well left out. Sleeve length is the other half of the same question.

The Miles short-sleeve shirt takes that question the other way. A.P.C. cuts it in organic cotton in pale grey, finished with mother-of-pearl buttons, and it suits the days when a long sleeve would be too much. Worn open over a men's T-shirt, a short-sleeved shirt does the work of a light jacket in September, and the collection carries another in poplin, striped in pink. An oxford shirt for men sits at the other end of the same wardrobe.

A men's ecru shirt against an indigo one

Colour is the last thing to settle, and the men's ecru shirts are the ones that ask the least of everything around them. A.P.C. is long associated with ecru, and offers it here as a checked shirt in cotton and as an overshirt in a heavier weight. Under a coat for men, an ecru collar is the part that shows, and it leaves the whole thing open through the darker months. Indigo does the opposite.

A.P.C. makes one shirt in a lightweight organic denim, indigo throughout, and a loose off-white overshirt from a recycled one. Worn with raw denim jeans, the indigo shirt keeps one register the whole way down. It is the cloth A.P.C. is known for, taken here as a shirt rather than a jean. The looser one goes the other way, and takes a denim jacket over it, the pale wash set against a darker one. Between the men's ecru shirt and the indigo one, the choice is the register you want, and the collar and the cut follow.