What is the best white shirt?

A reader searches for "unicorn": a well-made, reasonably priced classic white shirt.

I love a crisp white shirt with a good collar and a bit of length that can be dressed up or down. I'm attracted to well-made classic white shirts and ideally would like to have several of them, in rotation, so they must be reasonably priced. Have you ever found a unicorn like this? — Sarah, Cleveland Heights, Ohio

In 2020, Alexandra Shulman, the former editor of British Vogue, published a memoir that included an entire chapter devoted to the white shirt. "These pieces," she wrote, "are masters of illusion."

"They signify order and cleanliness, professionalism and authority," she continued - and also competence. "They can be "shorthand for 'the real me. of efficiency and power synonymous with corporate portraits everywhere, as well as relaxation and ease.Think of Marilyn Monroe in jeans on the beach, her white shirt tied just at the waist, or Meghan Markle making her debut at a royal date at the Invictus Games with Prince Harry.

They are suited for the Oscars red carpet (see Sharon Stone in 1998, when she wore a shirt white Gap with a long Vera Wang satin skirt) and a walk in the landmines (Princess Diana in Angola in 1997).

The white shirt can be cool downtown—Patti Smith on the cover of “Horses,” in a white shirt undone at the neck, a suit jacket slung over the shoulder—and downtown high. See Carolina Herrera pretty much anytime. It's entirely gender neutral. There's hardly anyone who doesn't look good in a white shirt.

As a result, the perfect white buttonhole is one of those garments that floats like a mirage on the landscape of the mind, just out of reach. It's the fashion equivalent of the blank page, inviting us to project all of our subconscious desires and self-fantasies to the top. (By the way, a buttonhole can be, but doesn't have to be, a buttonhole - it's an important fashion nomenclature: buttonholes are shirts you button up in the front, while buttonholes are shirts whose collar is held by buttons at each point).

That's why designer Anne Fontaine, who launched her eponymous company with a line of all-white shirts in 1993, is always able to come up with new styles every year.

So how do you choose? White shirts range from super cheap (Amazon Essentials has one for $13.60) to semi-outrageous. A Charvet cotton poplin shirt will set you back $568.

Karl Lagerfeld, who was famous for his high-necked white shirts and owned about 1,000 of them, got it. bought from British tailor Hilditch & Key, where a standard white shirt costs around £140 (around $165).

For a slightly cheaper version, the white shirt base from Brooks Brothers to Supima co. ..