Continuing with the theme of laying the foundation for a Wardrobe That Works, today we'll take a look at how to do that with your shirt selections.  If you missed the foundational suits, you can find that here.

It's somewhat surprising to me that the concept laid out below is new information to every single new client that I meet with.  Throughout my 20+ year career in custom made clothing, I have shared this formula with countless clients, taught it en mass when giving corporate seminars on the science behind "dressing for success" and how to do it effectively, and have even trained other custom clothiers how valuable this concept will be to their clients.  With all of that, I have yet to run into anyone that has ever heard of doing this type of thing.  That just seems crazy to me.   

At its most basic, the formula for choosing shirts that make up the foundation or your wardrobe boils down to taking the number of days per week that you dress for work and multiply that number by 3.  Half of these shirts will be white, and the rest will be a mix of blue, patterned, and "high colors".  If you are so inclined, you can stop right here.  You now have enough knowledge right now to make your life easier when shopping for shirts.

For those that didn't stop reading, welcome to the more advanced portion. 

Having a minimum of three weeks of shirts will allow you to keep your shirts in a rotation which evens out their wear, extends the usable life of each shirt, and equips you to more easily coordinate shirts and ties to your daily outfit.  The three weeks minimum of shirts in the rotation also makes your life easier by giving you one week's worth waiting to be picked up at the cleaners, one week's worth ready to be worn hanging in your closet, and one week's worth waiting to be taken to the cleaners.  That last bunch will usually be found in a heap in the corner, and probably much to your wife's obvious disapproval. 

Let's take a look now at how to best portion out your foundational shirts as it relates to colors, patterns etc.  In the example below, I'm using a five day workweek as our baseline.  You can simply adjust as is relevant to your situation.

3 weeks of shirts x 5 days per week, yields 15 shirts (I'm rounding up to 16 to keep the math easy).  Of the 16 shirts, the breakout looks like this:

• 8 solid white shirts
• 4 solid blue
• 2 patterned (checks, stipes, plaids etc.)
• 2 "high colors" (pinks, lavenders, yellows etc.)

 *The photo above is a representation of what the foundation of core basic shirts might look like.

Remember, this is just the baseline and your actual mileage will vary.  Your company dress code and likely work from home schedule may look different than our example above, but this formula is the best way to lay the foundation regardless of your work situation.  (For more than one business casual day per week, just substitute one patterned and one "high color" for two whites.)  

As you add more shirts to your wardrobe, just keep the basic formula in mind and you should never be at a loss for a shirt to perfectly match the outfit for the day.  Unless of course, you forget to stop by the dry cleaners.

*Pro-tip: if you travel for work, ask the cleaners to fold (some places call it boxing) at least one white shirt, so you have one that is ready to easily pack for the next overnight business trip.

I'll take a look at best practices for caring for your shirts in a later post, but please let me know in the comment section below if you feel there's anything I missed here.