The Oxford button-down shirt

Classically, an oxford shirt is made of oxford cloth, typically a basket weave pattern that is softer, comfortable, of greater durability, generally wrinkling less than the typical dress shirt. Also characteristic is a button-down collar. The oxford straddles informal dressing and formal occasions. Team it up with anything from a sweatshirt to a sport coat.

Wearing a tie with one is not frowned upon, but seldom done. One may wear an oxford shirt, open at the neck, with a single-breasted suit. It is a canny piece of clothing that somehow stiffens up any super-casual ensemble.

The oxford has become a smart-casual staple of men’s wardrobes, lending its polish to every level of “dressing up” and dressing down. That means it is seen at brunches and gala evenings and at home, even with flip-flops on and friends dropping in for a beer.

This style of shirting seems to underpin the modern guy’s shirt game.

Hot weather and its demands on folk who worked outdoors led to the development of this garment. The bush shirt's natural air-conditioning starts at the remarkably unstructured camp collar. The buttons start lower. The entire garment is generally tailored roomier.

It is moot as to who latched on to this celsius-tamer first.

Central American farmers? The British Army’s Africa corps? What is undisputable is, many of India’s bureaucrats and businessmen in the ‘70s and ‘80s made it their uniform, sticking to the classic four-pocket version, adding on trousers of an identical hue. This nondescript yet somehow villain-making get-up came to be known as the safari suit. Some folk, especially conservationists, chose to go with only the shirt.

Before rockstars and the off-beat co-worker across you cottoned on to the band collar shirt, it was the collar of choice for priests, farmers, miners and a lot of other gentlemen, unsavoury and perfectly legitimate, starting in the early 19th century.

There is a sinister, assertive cool to this breed of shirt collar.

A part of its appeal draws from the screen time it has enjoyed. All manner of period dramas have employed it as a pivotal character. Consider Eli Sunday, the preacher played by Paul Dano in “There will be Blood”, for instance. Maybe it is the button on it – lacking in the mandarin collar, that helps it stand out.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was great at telegraphing the distinctive flair of Indian clothes to the world at large. The Nehru jacket breaks off at the hip, sports a mandarin collar and its front is modelled on the achkan and bandhgala. Peace-loving young people - influenced by the beatnik vibe in the West, took up the Nehru jacket as a gesture of solidarity, in the face of Sino-Indian conflict in the ‘60s. Now, braced by our collective muscular Indianness and topped up with pocket squares, this item redeems tons of clueless but well-intentioned young men in a trice.

Even if one were to wear a shawl collar twice in a lifetime, “Everybody at that soiree will agree this is the spiffiest you’ve looked.”

This kind of collar is easily the most formal and grandest of any, on a tuxedo.

Completely rounded with no notches on either side, this style of lapel best shows off trimmer body types. The material on the lapel, usually silk or satin, matches a silk button on the tux and a vertical silk stripe down the tuxedo trouser. The entire get-up will outclass your day-to-day suit.