Here are all the distinctive features of the summer shirt gathered : a comfortable fit, a straight hem that allowed it to be worn untucked, like a jacket, and an open collar.
But let's take a closer look at the open collar. Its popularity dates back to the 1920s, a time when a heated debate raged between those who favoured the « stiff collar » and those who preferred the « soft collar ». The latter did not hesitate to wear their collars unbuttoned and wide open over their jackets, forming what was called a Byron collar, which resembles a makeshift camp collar.
From the very beginning of the 1930s, the first models of the camp collar, or Cuban collar, appeared in ready-to-wear catalogues, under the name « sports collar ». It was a notched, convertible collar with a small loop and a button under the collar, allowing it to be worn open or closed with a tie. The length of its points followed the fashion. They were similar to the Barrymore or spearpoint collar in the 1930s before becoming shorter in the 1940s and 1950s.
This is how the camp collar shirt came about. It was a streamlined version of the safari jacket and the guayabera. The belt, bellows pockets, epaulettes, and decorative details were gone. It had one or two patch chest pockets with or without flaps, a straight hem, and two side vents. For a time, it was still often seen tucked into trousers. Nevertheless, this style eventually became popular from the 1940s onwards, appearing in a multitude of fabrics and a series of variations such as the cabana shirt with two large patch pockets, often paired with matching shorts, the two-tone bowling shirt, or the Aloha shirt with tropical prints.
Alongside the evolution of the shirt jacket, another type of comfortable garment inspired by the shirt emerged at the end of the First World War : the blouse jacket.
The growing popularity of sports like golf and motorised vehicles (motorcycles and cars) created a need for « short coats » that would offer greater freedom of movement (for golf) or greater comfort on a motorcycle or in a car. The blouse jacket was precisely a short jacket that « blouses » at the waist. The general shape gradually stabilised under the name « Cossack jacket » in the late 1920s : a loose-fitting jacket with a waist cinched by side tabs or a ribbed knit waistband. The Cossack collar itself gradually disappeared, giving way to the shirt collar of the gab jacket, the ribbed knit collar of the bomber jacket, and the buttoned stand-up collar of the golf jacket. The fancy back details (back belts and gussets), characteristic of blouse jackets and sports jackets between the wars, were also abandoned in the 1940s. The zipper eventually replaced buttons as well.
If we combine the fundamental features of the shirt jacket and the blouse jacket — a loose fit, an open collar without a collar stand, and a straight hem with side tabs — we arrive back at our starting point. The 1960s shirt-jac, which could just as easily be called a blouse-jac, once symbolised the epitome of Californian cool, whether one thinks of Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco or the photos of Nat King Cole from the same era, both of whom were undoubtedly wearing designs by Sy Devore, Frank Sinatra's tailor.
The fact remains that the shirt-jac is the heir to this dual history, a hybrid of hybrids, and its logical conclusion.
