Vêtement · Knitwear
The polo shirt
The polo shirt is a soft-collared, short-sleeved knitted shirt that René Lacoste designed for tennis in the 1920s, later named by polo players.
The polo shirt is a knitted short-sleeved shirt with a soft collar and a short button placket. René Lacoste designed it for tennis in the 1920s to replace the long-sleeved woven shirts players had been wearing; polo players adopted it and gave it the name it kept.
Knit, not woven
The polo shirt's defining quality is that it is knitted rather than woven, which is why it stretches, breathes and does not need pressing. Piqué, a textured knit with a fine waffle structure, is the traditional cloth and remains the best for the purpose.
The collar is the part that decides whether a polo shirt looks good under a jacket. A soft, unfused collar with enough length stands up on its own; a thin, floppy one collapses and looks like sportswear, which is what it is.
Long-sleeved and knitted polos
A long-sleeved polo in a fine knit (cotton, merino or silk blend) sits comfortably under a sport coat and is one of the more useful things in a warm-weather wardrobe. The Italian trade does this particularly well.
The general rule: the finer the knit and the better the collar, the more the garment can carry.
Under a jacket
A long-sleeved polo in a fine knit works under a sport coat in a way a short-sleeved one does not, because the sleeve reaches the jacket cuff and the outfit reads as intentional. The collar has to be able to stand: soft, unfused, long enough to sit against the jacket's gorge.
The Italian trade does this particularly well, in cotton, merino and silk-cotton blends. It is one of the most useful warm-weather substitutions available and one of the easiest to get wrong with the wrong collar.
En un coup d'œil
Crédits photographiques 1
- A navy piqué polo shirt: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art