Jacquemus, AW19, ‘La chemise Loya’ in dark beige and light blue.
In the second article, so far, of garments that have made it from catwalk to retail let’s take a look at the details on a Jacquemus raw silk shirt aka ‘La chemise Loya’ from Autumn-Winter 2019. Since this is now 2/2 on shirt details (the first being a Rejina Pyo shirt), it highlights that shirts are one of those styles that can be layered into runway looks with ease, but don’t need much tweaking to get them from catwalk sample to production-ready.
It’s possible that the fit of this garment has been adjusted slightly from the catwalk version, as this is quite a common adjustment, but the detailing and colours look consistent with those seen on the Jacquemus runway for Autumn-Winter 2019».
The first interesting detail on this shirt was what appeared to be tricksy panelling in the sleeves used to create the shaping, however, the truth was much more straightforward. The construction looks like a relatively traditional sleeve pattern using a seam down the back of the arm, which has then been overlaid with an elbow patch in self fabric.
The oversized fit of the whole garment is created by first widening out the main body of the shirt, which also has the effect of bumping the shoulder seam out past the shoulder point of the wearer so that the sleeve also sits out wider. This widening then creates the dropped shoulder look, where the shoulder seam slips slightly off the top of the shoulder and the sleeve sits lower on the arm. Since the top of the sleeve no longer has to curve up and over the top of the wearer’s shoulder, this may also have meant that the top of the sleeve head was made shallower. This was explained in more detail in the article Shaping the Shoulder Curve: The Dropped Shoulder and the Set In Sleeve».
The volume in the sleeve is controlled at the cuff with two buttons and one buttonhole, so that the cuff becomes adjustable. The cuff itself is pointed and appears to have a tab that extends past the edge of the sleeve fabric. This design has the effect of gathering the volume of the fabric nicely at the cuff.
Another detail to note is the collar design. Unlike a traditional shirt collar, there is no visible collar stand at the front. Instead, it’s possible that the collar has been sewn directly onto the garment, or that there is a small tapered collar stand that would only be visible if the collar was popped up. Since there is no collar stand at the front, this has allowed for a larger top button, and this larger size has also been used at the cuff. Upsizing smaller details like this is one way to emphasise the oversized feel of the whole shirt.
One last component of this shirt’s design that has a large impact is the handle of the fabric. The raw silk used, described on the Jacquemus website as densely woven, does not fall into crisp tight folds at the neckline and cuff. Instead, the handle of the fabric must be quite bouncy, which encourages the fabric to fall in soft rounded curves around the cuffs and fold smoothly over the top of the collar. The fact that this fabric has this quality helps to support the overall volume of the design and gives it a smoother and more luxe feel. It’s possible that the fabric has some sort of twill weave, as the diagonal structure would help to make the fabric more bouncy like this.
Images from Jacquemus.com» and LNCC.com»