Flutterby™! : Silk shirts

We went in to the city Saturday to have lunch with Jen of Divinest Sense, in the course of which I managed to splatter my shirt. Since I wanted to look like a little less of a slob, and since I'm always on the lookout for good shirts, we took a short time in between saying "bye" to Jen and heading up to Broadway Studios for the evening's show to run over to Union Square and get me a new shirt.

The first place we stopped in had silk shirts which... would have made me look like I'd just walked out of some sort of bizarre disco rodeo. Embroidered glittery collars, the whole bit. The style didn't fit, so we continued to the next place that looked promising.

I've bought silk from a variety of different sources. Street vendors in Hong Kong, hoity-toity department stores like Nordstrom, I think I've even found one or two on the remainders rack in a Ross or a Marshalls. I've worn more than one shirt to the point where the seams just failed, and I'm familiar with several different finishes, and how they hold up after wearings and washings. We walked into Wilkes-Bashford, where I mentioned my aversion to looking like I walked out of a rodeo, and was shown some plain white shirts that not only had the worst of these finishes, they cost $475.

I'm conscious of "cost per wearing" when I buy stuff. Part of the reason I like silk is that I think it wears nicely, lasts a reasonable amount of time. I'm totally cool with $100 for a good shirt, especially if I like the provenance of the manufacturing. These were things I wouldn't buy for HK$28 ($4 US), and I wasn't particularly impressed with the country of origin label either.

Eventually found a reasonable shirt of a closeout rack at Macy*s (of all places) for $22, which I felt was something of a score, and made the show in time to get a great table. But once again I'm amazed at the amazing range of values exhibited in the economy.