DESIGNING THE DETAILS
Eames said it best: "The details are not the details. They make the design.” A BARONS shirt is not just a shirt. Every part of the process is carefully considered and many visible, as well as invisible choices, have been made along the way to create the ultimate business shirt.
The shirt consists of 45 different parts, and there are 70 people involved in its conception worldwide – each with their very own field of expertise. Every shirt has 12.000 stitches, or about 90 metres of thread. 150 of those make up the buttonhole, twice the amount of any standard quality shirt, for a cleaner, smoother and more durable shirt.
First Class Cotton
There are many different types of cotton in the world, generally categorized by the length of the cotton fibres. The longer the fibres, the better the quality. The scale is measured from Short (-20,6 mm), Medium, Medium Long, Long to Extra-Long Staple (+34,9 mm). We only use Extra-Long for our business shirts, because this makes the shirt durable, lighter and much more comfortable to wear.
Only 3% of the worlds cotton production is categorized as Extra-Long. We have tested several manufacturers and found, that the best and most consistent quality of cotton is US-Pima cotton from San Joaquin Valley in Northern California. It is of course possible to find more expensive alternatives, but then you would actually not be paying for a higher quality of cotton. Prices are typically higher, because the cotton is produced in smaller batches from places like The Caribbean. But a smaller batch actually doesn’t make it a superior cotton, so we don’t want to raise the price of the shirt just for that.
Livin’ Life In An Non Iron World
The cotton is spun, weaved and treated to become our signature fabrics. We don’t view this as three separate processes, but rather as one whole. The fabric is then treated in Switzerland with about 40 chemical and mechanical processes. It will typically take about teen weeks to execute the various methods of treatment, which probably could be done much cheaper in other parts of the world. But because we care a great deal about the environment, all our shirts are OEKO-TEX 100®-certified, meaning there are absolutely no harmful waste chemicals in any of our products. We know, that our customers wear our shirts many hours a day, so this particular detail needs to be perfect. This special process is also what makes our shirts some of the most ironless shirts on the market today.
The Curious Case Of The Uncompromising Button
Our choice of buttons are no mere coincidence either. The roundness and shape has been carefully tested and selected. Some would probably preach, that mother of pearl would be the “finest” choice of button. But as we all know, mother of pearl is a natural product, and we feel very strongly, that it belongs in the ocean. Besides, they also break more easily, particularly at the drycleaners. If the button is made thicker in an attempt to prevent this, it also becomes harder to close. All in all, we have concluded that mother of pearl is a much more expensive option, without the benefit of adding any real value to the shirt.
Therefore Barons buttons are Swedish and fastened with a special heat-treated thread, courtesy of a special Swiss patented machine and technique used only by the best shirt brands in the business. The thread is wound around the existing thread to keep the button in place. This makes our buttons exceptionally sturdy, easy to close and actually enhance the quality of the shirt.
The Collar
The collar is yet another thing that makes the Barons shirt stand out. Our collars are comprised of seven individual pieces of fabric in varying layers of thickness, undergoing 15 different stages of processing before becoming a Barons collar. This is in part due to a special double layered heat-process, where most brands only use one. We also use a very special interlining layer in collars and cuffs, with yet another layer between the two. They are then treated twice for at perfect collar. The design focuses on a sharp looking collar, so you can look as sharp as possible - all day long.