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I wear collared shirts each day not out of necessity, but out of a belief that wearing something uncomfortable, expensive and frequently ill-fitting makes me appear more “professional.”
Rhone’s solved two of those issues.
Background: I’ve been using Rhone for my workout gear since literally the week they launched in 2014 — their stuff excels at fit, comfort and keeping me relatively odor-free during morning HIIT routines (their stuff is also decidedly not flashy, a welcome trend in activewear).
I wasn’t hesitant to try something more day-to-day from the brand, but I also haven’t gone out of my way to test out their sport polos or commuter pants; the idea of bringing technical fabrics into a biz casual office environment always sounded nice in theory but seems like overkill for someone who rides a subway and then sits in a chair for ten hours a day.
The Commuter Dress Shirt changed my mind. It’s truly a great-looking office shirt with all its technical prowess hidden from plain sight, and it added a level of comfort I wasn’t expecting.
Three things I dug after a day of wear:
- It doesn’t look like a piece of performance gear. The blue microcheck button-up looks as good as any made-to-measure shirt I currently own, and it doesn’t have that “sheen” I associate with some technical fabrics. It could pass for some sort of elevated poplin on appearance.
- It’s got stretch in good ways. Many “stretch” products I own cling to my huskier frame, meaning they simply stick to and accentuate areas where I’d like to lose some mass. My XL-sized Commuter shirt has flex for comfort without sucking into my gut.
- It’s not a sweatbox. Wearing an everyday dress shirt, my post-workout, post-shower, long-walk, crowded-subway, ice-coffee morning usually leaves me with pit stains and the feeling I’ve been sitting in a steam bath. So far the Commuter shirt has wicked away 90% of my usual, uh, moisture and I feel less heated than a typical weekday.
Rhone says the shirt doesn’t need dry cleaning or ironing; I can vouch for the latter, as I stuffed it into a backpack for a day before wearing and simply pulled it out and put it on, wrinkle-free.
Right now you’re limited to two styles of blue, but the Commuter Shirt is certainly worth an investment, especially over the next few months of warmer weather.
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