Two striped shirts may look identical, but they can be made in completely different ways. Here is what distinguishes yarn-dyed fabric from printed fabric, and the long history behind it.

Few shirts in history have become as powerful a symbol as Garibaldi's red shirt. From its South American origins, still partly shrouded in legend, to the Unification of Italy and beyond.

They are only a few centimeters long and almost no one sees them, but without them many collars would lose their shape. Here is the story of collar stays and why they exist.

The pocket on the shirt seems to have always been there, but it is a fairly recent addition to this garment's long history. Here is where it comes from and why the most elegant shirts continue to do without it.

The mother-of-pearl button is one of the little luxuries of shirting. Here is where it comes from, the surprising story of the shell rush on the Mississippi and the tricks to distinguish it from a plastic imitation.

Above the shirt cuff is a small finished opening, often with a little button in the middle. They are called a sleeve placket and cuff button: here is what they are for and what they tell us about the construction of a shirt.

If Savile Row is the street of tailors, Jermyn Street has for over a century been the street of shirtmakers. Here is the history of this London street, among counts, scientists, dandies and shop windows full of shirts.

Those numbers like 100/2 or 140/2 on shirt labels look like a secret code. In fact, they tell you how fine the yarn is and how it's constructed: here's how to read them, with a touch of English textile industry history.

Oxford cotton takes its name from one of the most famous universities in the world, but it has little to do with Oxford. Here is where the name comes from, how its weave is constructed, and why it lasts so long.

The button-down collar was created to solve a very practical problem: the collar points flapping in polo players' faces. Here is how an English idea became an icon of American style, and then of the whole world.

That little fabric loop on the back of some shirts has a surprising history. From sailors and lockers to 1960s American students, here is what the locker loop is used for.

For centuries, the shirt was an undergarment, not to be shown in public. Here is how it became, step by step, the iconic garment of men's elegance.