Classical Art Button Up Shirt 'Nagisa'

A classical painting of robed figures on a shore, printed like a fresco

The picture on this shirt is a painting of the academic kind, figures in white and coloured robes gathered on a shore under a pale sky, a man with a lyre at the front, a figure in green with his arms raised on the back, printed edge to edge so the shirt reads as a piece of the canvas cut to a pattern. The collar is a marbled brown, the colour of the frame.

It is the art shirt of the collection, and it is drawn from a painting old enough to belong to everyone, printed at a resolution that keeps the faces.

The name, Nagisa, is the water's edge, the shore the figures are standing on.

The cut is a camp shirt: an open collar that lies flat, a straight hem to wear untucked, short sleeves cut wide, and a body cut boxy through the chest so it hangs rather than clings. It is the shape of the Japanese summer shirt since the fifties, and it has not needed changing. The cloth is a polyester-cotton blend with a smooth, dry hand, chosen because an all-over print needs a flat ground to stay sharp and a summer shirt needs to wash cold, dry fast and come out of the machine without an iron. It does.

Wear it open over a white tee or buttoned to the second button with white trousers, as in the photograph, and plain shoes. Nothing else with a pattern; the shirt has used the day's allowance. The pale ground goes with white and cream; the collar goes with brown shoes.

From across a street it is a pale shirt with figures on it. From close the faces have their expressions, the robes their folds, the lyre its strings, and the marbling on the collar its veins. It is the shirt for a gallery opening, and for the drink after it.

The print is placed so the man with the lyre lands on the front and the figure in green on the back, and the collar is cut from the painting's frame, so the shirt carries the picture and its edge. The faces are printed at a resolution that keeps them faces.

It washes cold, inside out, and dries on a hanger in an hour; the print does not fade, and there is nothing to iron unless you want the collar sharp, in which case a cool iron on the back of it takes a minute.

Sizes run from S to XXL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.