How our shirts are made

Foster Barry Shirts are made in London, England to the same high standard as the few traditional Jermyn Street Shirtmakers that remain in the street. We use only the finest materials when making our shirts and take great pride in the products we present to you.

Collars

The Classic Foster Barry Collar is made in the traditional Jermyn Street style. It has a sophisticated spread and a reliably deep point creating the authority deserved of a classic business shirt. Our collar is made from three components that when combined sit beautifully over the tie and under the suit. With our collars there is room for a high quality 350 end silk tie without the collar bulking around the neck.

We use a woven interlining that is cut on the bias and not fused to the material of the collar. Cheaper shirts fuse the collar to the interlining to stiffen the appearance of the material and simplify the construction. After a number of washes this inferior construction can lead to the interlining partially detaching from the collar fabric creating rucking or bubbling when the collar is ironed. At Foster Barry our collar material is more comfortable to the wearer because we rely on maintaining the collar’s shape by using premium materials, quality construction and superior craftsmanship.

Collar Stay Pockets

Another sign of a quality shirt is individually stitched pockets for your collar stays. Collar stays stiffen the points and maintain the shape of the collar. However, they need to be removed when the shirt is washed otherwise if they were left in (or in the case of cheaper shirts sewn in) they might bend of break. Also, ironing over them leads to uneven wear on the collar points.

Yokes

Our shirt yokes are made from four individual pieces of fabric each of which is hand cut with the top yokes cut on the bias. Cutting on the bias allows the yoke to support the rest of the shirt. Rotating the fabric so that the pieces meet each other at an angle increases the give in the material, enabling the shirt (or rather the yoke) to accommodate movements made by the wearer. We create a split yoke to ensure a properly contoured fit that allows for ease of movement across the shoulders.

Plackets

The term placket refers to the double layers of fabric that hold buttons and buttonholes in the front of a shirt. Our shirt fronts are beautifully balanced with a 1 ¼” (3.2cm) placket constructed from the actual body of the shirt material rather than being sewn on as an attachment. Our plackets are hand formed rather than being blow formed by machine, which sadly even the most reputable Jermyn Street shirtmakers tend to do nowadays.

For those of you who are curious about word origins, ‘placket’ comes from the old French word plaque, which means ‘to lay on’.

Cloth

Foster Barry Poplin shirting fabrics are produced in Italy and made using traditional methods.  The cloth is a classic two fold cotton shirting fabric, produced in the tradition of fine English cloth using the best Extra Long Staple Egyptian cotton from the Nile Delta region.

Poplin is a fabric where the vertical warp threads are very closely set and are exactly double in number to the horizontal weft threads. The combination of a special twist given to the fine yarns, plus the traditional pure finishing method, confer a special lustre and softness, characteristics which make our fabrics quite unique in their class. Foster Barry shirting fabrics make our garments stand apart, defining their style, enhancing their excellence and ensuring the highest quality end product.

Button Holes

Our shirts are made with Purl buttonholes. The purl stitch produces a neat raised thread around the buttonhole. This ensures the button rests on the purl rather than on the shirt fabric. The key to a well worked buttonhole is even stitching together with keeping the purl flat against the edge of the buttonhole.

Buttons

Nacre, usually known as mother of pearl, is an organic-inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also what makes up the outer coating of pearls. It is strong, resilient and iridescent.

All the mother of pearl buttons on our shirts (and boxer shorts) are created from the best quality Australian deep shell mother of pearl. The use of deep shell is important in the making of high quality buttons as its use guards against splintering. Our button makers are based in Yorkshire and our buttons are selected for their whiteness. Our buttons are polished to give a special double ring edge and have four sewing holes. All our mother of pearl is acquired from ecologically sustainable sources.

Our buttons are attached with traditional ‘H’ stitches and the shanks are then individually hand wound to secure the buttons firmly to the shirt.

Cuffs

We offer our customers a choice of Double Cuff or Three Button Cuff styles. For our Double Cuff shirts we also offer a range of sterling silver mounted mother of pearl reversible button cufflinks.

Regardless of cuff choice we attach the cuff to the sleeve by gathering the material rather than by creating the more conventional double pleats. We hope this adds a touch of style.

Gauntlet

Gauntlet is the English term for the sleeve placket, that open area just before the cuff. Like all other important stress points in a shirt our gauntlets are reinforced.

Cutting

Our shirts are cut by hand; another sign of a true quality shirt.

Stitching

We stitch together our side seams and shirt tails in one process. A second row of stitches is added to further strengthen the garment.

All our stitching is single needle with 18-20 stitches per inch (2.5cm).

We believe this combination creates a fine, strong and flat finish.

Gusset

In homage to the great Jermyn Street shirtmakers we reinforce where the side seams join the shirt tails with a hexagonal poplin gusset. This greatly improves durability at the base of the side seams.

Shirt Tails

One of the most annoying things about cheaper shirts are short shirt tails, where the slightest act of bending over results in the shirt tail popping out from the back of the trousers. Foster Barry shirts have full length shirt tails to stop this unfortunate event occurring.

Components

A Foster Barry shirt is made up from 33 separate pieces; many cheaper makes have 30 or fewer component pieces. The figure 33 excludes the seven buttons on our double cuff shirt or the 13 buttons on our button cuff shirt.

Quality Checks

We are proud of the ready to wear shirts we sell. Extensive quality checks are carried out at all stages of the production and packaging processes.