The Striped Summer Souvenir - The Chelsea Shirt.

The world is divided into those who love a good jumble sale rummage on the hunt for vintage bounty – and those who don’t. As time marches on, the search for authentic treasure becomes harder and harder and chances are, you’re not going to find top-quality wearable nostalgia at a table-top sale down the local church.

With this in mind, Universal Works have done the graft for you, by designing the perfect 1950s style solution – otherwise known as the Chelsea Stripe Shirt.

This camp collar classic is the souvenir you didn’t find at a snazzy flea market. It’s been made freshly for you, with straight hems, single chest pocket and that signature bowling alley silhouette.

UW founder David Keyte wanted to bring a beat poet flavour into the collection for summer and here, he gives us some background intel on the idea behind the embroidery and explains,

“The inspiration was from a trip to the south western states of America. We’d travelled there to take a look at the native American weaving and early-settler textile making. These simple patterns were used to decorate lots of different surfaces, not just clothing. I wanted to try and encapsulate that beat-generation-poet-on-a-road-trip across 1950s USA feeling.

So, while I was in Mexico, I started sketching out some simple ideas in my notebook and sent my favourite one back to Jamie at UWHQ to tweak and scale it for use on a shirt. Off it went to the embroiderer and here we have the final result. We made the Chelsea Stripe Shirt in Portugal from a superfine 95GSM cotton. It’s lightweight, with a soft, almost silky hand-feel for that luxury, almost already lived-in texture.” 

There you have it. Available now in Blue or Ecru Stripe. It’s a chapter of breezy, open-necked, pure cotton brilliance - ideal for poets and pub-goers alike.

 Browse shirting. 

 Browse shirting.