When it comes to business clothing, it’s highly important the items you buy and wear are high quality. When working in a corporate environment, giving out the appropriate signals and appearance is highly important – and everything you wear reflects something about you, your business and how you work.
Keeping this in mind, you want to ensure that you, or your employees, are always dressed smart in a business setting and that they’re always giving off the best possible impression to potential customers or clients. You want that first impression to be a positive one, and investing in the right corporate shirts and workwear can have a huge impact on this.
As a general rule, you’ll want to ensure you do the following:
- Have high quality garments, including business shirts
- Have ironed and pressed your items so there aren’t any creases
- Have matching items and (if wearing a suit) have matching suit items
- Have a well put-together appearance
- Have polished shoes
- Have matching socks
One of the main things though in a corporate setting, is the shirt. A business shirt is a classic staple of the corporate world and you’ll want to ensure you’ve got it right.
A big part of this can simply be ensuring you’ve bought the right brand, and you’re wearing high-quality items that will stand the test of time. With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of things to look out for when purchasing a corporate shirt, so you can ensure you’re investing in the right clothing brands and ensuring the corporate shirts you’re buying at a high quality.
Tip 1: Look at the fabric
The fabric of the shirt is a very important part (probably the most important). A good fabric will feel better for the wear, and it’ll make the wearer more comfortable. But it’ll also last better, and hold it’s shape better too. Feeling the fabric, it should feel firm and soft.
Tip 2: Check the label
The label of your shirt will give you vital information about the composition of the fabric. Why is this important? It’ll give you an idea as to the quality of the fabric and how long-lasting the fabric has the potential to be. The label will also tell you the washing instructions – which are hugely important when it comes to keeping your shirt in a good wearable condition for longer periods of time.
Tip 3: Check the stitching
As a general rule, the more stitching per centimetre, the better. More stitching shows the manufacturing of a garment has been done well. A general shirt on the market will have 4 stitches per centimetre, so it’s best to avoid anything less than this. More high quality shirts will have up to 6, or even 8.
Tip 4: Check the collars
Your collar is a crucial element of your shirt and you’ll want to ensure the collar keeps its shape all day. Collar-bones can be integrated into a corporate shirts to ensure they stay stiff and upright – and keep that smart appearance that corporate shirts are so well known for. There are many styles for collars on business shirts, which include; the button down collar, the one (or two) button cutaway collar, and then the semi-cutaway collar. All of these look smart in a business and corporate environment.
Tip 5: Check your cuffs
You want to looks for versatile cuffs in a corporate environment, as it’ll make your shirt easy to wear. Ideally you should be looking for two buttons on the cuff, with one extra buttonhole. With these extra feature you’ll be able to adjust it to your wrist, and change it into a french cuff if needed. This is great as it gives you choices for styling.
Tip 6: Check the buttons
First of all, check that your buttons are cross-stitched. This style of stitching means the buttons will last longer, and you’re less likely to lose them early-on because of loose stitching. You’ll also want to check the buttons are waterproof and hard-wearing, and that you have a spare supply of buttons providing somewhere on the shirt. These are usually stitched into the inside of the garment somewhere, so it’s worth finding out where.
Tip 7: The last button hole
The last buttonhole should also be a horizontal buttonhole, rather than a vertical one. The other buttonholes will be vertical, but having the final hole as horizontal allows a tiny bit more give-room for you stomach area. It means less stress is put on the button, and it means the seams will likely last longer.
