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Whether you need something to throw over a tee on a September night or you’re looking for a mid-layer during a mid-winter skirmish, the overshirt is a truly versatile garment that always comes in handy.
A bit more substantial than your average shirt, they're particularly useful when Autumn rolls around.
Here’s a few that you might be into…
The A Kind of Guise Dullu Overshirt
A Kind of Guise make a whole slew of overshirts. They make chunky corduroy ones, they make ones with massive pockets down the front, and they make ones that look like they were made out of deceased Steiff teddy bears.
This woolly number here is maybe a bit more stripped back than some of the ones they do – but what it lacks in pockety features it more than makes up for in general luxury.
The Patagonia Isthmus Quilted Shirt
Up next we’re taking a trip to the imaginary American Mid-West courtesy of this quilted shirt from Patagonia.
Imagine a film in which Robert Redford (or maybe Casey Affleck) plays a quiet and surly ranch-hand who manages to find courage and strength after the death of his older brother by tending to a volatile-yet-lovable palomino who no one else has time for… well, this is definitely what he’d wear.
Warm… tough… big press-studs… ideal for cold mornings driving around the back-roads of rural Montana in a Subaru BRAT.
The YMC Ryder Overshirt
This is good isn’t it? It’s one of those rare creations that somehow manages to be both familiar and fresh at the same time.
There’s slight shades of 1970s LL Bean to it… with the added fire-side comfort of some lightweight low-profile fleece… it’s got some big press-studs down the front… and that burnt orange shade is just right…
It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen, and everything we’ve ever wanted. Cracking stuff.
The Penfield Strongheart Shirt
This doozy from Penfield fuses two genres of overshirts together into one majestic garment. It’s got the fairly stripped back shape and the straight hem you’d maybe find on a military field jacket, with the big, shiny press-studs hoiked straight off a coach jacket.
Seeing as this is now the third time we’ve mentioned press-studs in this article, let’s go off on a bit of a tangent.
Did you know that these things were apparently first used on shirts by rodeo cowboys, who needed to be able to remove their shirts swiftly if they became tangled in their horse’s saddle? Good news for anyone prone to a rodeo.
The Universal Works Uniform Shirt
And finally, here’s a delectable slab of 100% cotton corduroy from Universal Works.
A touch shorter than the other beauties on this list, this has that super-sharp ‘quick-talking mechanic in a 1950s Robert Frank photograph’ type look to it that’s pretty hard to find these days.
More Overshirts from the Archives
Not our first encounter with the overshirt, this. We rounded up another selection back in 2017, featuring Manastash, Norse Projects, Armor-Lux, Universal Works and Arpenteur.
You can read all about them in our original Pica~Picks overshirts article. Plenty of pockets, military-inspired shirts and some fairly convincing arguments for wearing another layer.
These particular overshirts belong to the archives now, but there's a fresh selection of overshirts on the shelves. Still somewhere between a shirt and a jacket. Still pretty handy.
