I have no history with this shirt, but it comes with its own, albeit that of a simulacrum - that very modern form of provenance in a branded garment: its fabric is a reproduction from Turnbull & Asser's first swatch book.
125 years ago, Victorian men wore shirts with this exact pattern on them.
The shop manager said that this was one of the tamer designs in the book. How amazing to think of the emergent middle class, grown newly fat on industry, wearing such colourful shirts. What of the buttoned-up-tight plain raiment we expect from the Victorians, as they dressed the erotic turnings of table legs? Then again, perhaps 'Walter' was wearing one of these shirts as he twitched at his desk penning eleven volumes of "My Secret Life"...
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