Silk-Blend Dress Shirt

The number this shirt is built around is 200支 — a 200-count yarn, which is a yarn spun from longer and finer fibres than an ordinary poplin and then woven denser. The maker also prints 12% 桑蚕丝 and a DP non-iron finish on its own plate, and it names cotton in the listing text, so this is a cotton-and-silk cloth rather than a silk shirt, and the numbers are the maker claims rather than a certificate we can show you. What that buys is a shirt that is finer to the hand and holds a crease out of the wash. What it costs is thinness: a 200-count cloth is not a heavy shirt, and it is not meant to be. Five of the sixteen colourways the stall lists are shown here, because only five are photographed in a way that ties a picture to a name in its own size table.

What 200-count means

Yarn count measures how fine a yarn is: a 200-count yarn is spun from far finer fibres than the 40s or 60s an ordinary shirt is made of, and the cloth that comes off the loom is thinner, denser and smoother. It is also less forgiving — a fine yarn has less body to hide behind, so the weave has to be even. That is the whole case for a high-count shirt, and the reason a 200-count cloth feels the way it does.

12% silk, and why we print the number

The plate says 12% 桑蚕丝. Silk at that share does not make the shirt a silk shirt — it changes how the cloth moves and how it catches light, and it is why the greys and blues here look slightly deeper than a plain cotton poplin. The maker is unusually specific for a wholesale listing, so the honest thing is to pass the number on rather than round it up to silk.

Five of the sixteen colours

The stall lists sixteen colourways and photographs eight of them — and for most of those it shoots a two-up: the shirt on a model beside a square of the cloth with a Chinese name under it. Five can be matched to a name in its own size table with certainty, so five are on the site. The starry-blue houndstooth it only ever photographs as a collar, which is the frame we have used.

Details

• Colour: White · Light-blue hairline stripe · Light-blue check · Light-grey self-stripe · Starry-blue houndstooth
• Size: Sold by collar, as the stall lists it: 38/S · 39/M · 40/L · 41/XL · 42/2XL · 43/3XL · 44/4XL · 45/5XL. Chest, sleeve and length are DETAILS TO BE CONFIRMED
• Material: A 200-count cotton-and-silk cloth. The maker prints 200支 and 12% 桑蚕丝 on its own plate, with siro-spun four-ply yarn and a DP non-iron finish; the listing text names mulberry silk and cotton. Every one of those is the maker own claim — the balance of the composition and the exact percentages are DETAILS TO BE CONFIRMED
• Fit: A regular business cut with a spread collar, a plain front, a box pleat at the back yoke and a curved hem that can be worn out

Care

• Machine wash cold on a gentle cycle, or by hand, and hang to dry: the DP finish is what keeps this shirt out of an iron, and heat is what takes it back out.
• If it does need an iron, use the silk setting with the cloth slightly damp rather than a hot dry iron.
• A 200-count cloth abrades faster than a coarse one — wash it with smooth things, and keep it off hooks and rough hangers.
• The stall publishes no fibre label with this listing, so these are the terms a fine cotton-and-silk cloth asks for in general rather than a label we can quote.

Why we chose it

Because the maker prints a 200-count yarn and 12% mulberry silk on its own plate — a number a buyer can argue with — and because the photographs show the cloth and the collar rather than a logo.

One piece is fine. Buy a single piece at the price shown, or ask for a trade quote from ten units — written by a person, never read off a table.