A three-dimensional silhouette that shows off your lines beautifully. Original striped shirt and dress

ZUTTO's original items are complete.

What we'd like to introduce this time are the [Striped Collarless Shirt] and [Striped Shirt Dress], both made from typewriter cloth. Both pieces can be worn alone in autumn and spring, or layered with an inner top or sweater in winter, making them items you can enjoy for a long stretch of the year.

These original ZUTTO items are designed with careful attention to creating a beautiful silhouette when worn. This time again, we asked the staff member behind the planning and design about the thinking that went into them.

What do you want to wear during that seasonal transition, when mornings and evenings are cool but daytime is still hot? Your fashion mood may already be moving toward the next season, but you still want clothing that can handle the temperature swings. For that kind of season, shirt fabric turned out to be just right.

It gives a slightly more put-together feel than a casual cut-and-sew top, yet imagining a classic, sharply tailored collared shirt makes things suddenly feel too formal. So we aimed for something in between the ease of a cut-and-sew and a shirt, and set out to make a shirt and shirt dress with some playfulness in the silhouette. We made the shirt collarless, and while the dress does have a collar, we paid close attention to its size to give it a slightly different impression from the usual, among other touches.

Made from a smooth, dry-feeling fabric with long sleeves, it can be worn with the sleeves rolled up, on its own, or thrown on like a light outer layer—handling temperature changes while also changing its look, making it a truly useful item.

This collarless shirt uses a generous amount of fabric that catches the air, giving it a soft, billowy silhouette. What we aimed for was a three-dimensional silhouette. By working with the silhouette, the shirt doesn't trace the lines of the body, and instead creates an outfit with real atmosphere.

So, what does it mean to create three-dimensionality with a shirt?

First, the fabric has body and crispness. A fabric with this kind of firmness creates a beautiful crumpled texture when the sleeves are rolled up. It adds volume around the upper arms, giving a feminine feel without tracing the lines of the body directly.

Pants: ZUTTO / Shetland Wool Linen Gaucho Pants

Bag: ARTS&CRAFTS / HORSE LEATHER DRAW STRINGS POUCH/M

On the other hand, that same firmness can make the shirt look larger, so to keep the volume in check, we added several tucks in effective places. The tucks placed below each shoulder on the front body emphasize a top-to-bottom line, while the tucks at the left and right hems guide the shirt into a soft, cocoon-like silhouette.

Rather than having the collar sit flush together like a baseball shirt, we designed it so that a slight V shape forms when the buttons are closed, creating a feminine look. This design also comes to life when a sweater is layered on top—wearing a sweater lets a peek of the striped shirt show at the neckline. Of course, it also works wonderfully worn with a cut-and-sew top underneath in place of a cardigan. Because the sleeves are designed with some extra room, layering underneath doesn't feel bulky. Since it can be layered both over and under other pieces, it will keep proving useful as the weather turns colder.

The back view hasn't been overlooked, either. Since the fabric across the shoulders and back is cut with some extra ease, a pleat is added down the center to give the back a three-dimensional feel. To balance this out, tucks are also added on the left and right of the back hem, keeping the silhouette settled.

With the dropped-shoulder design and a seam that falls just above the elbow, the way the stripe pattern appears changes as well, resulting in a design that's fun to wear.

Skirt: FACTORY / Cotton Gathered Skirt

Shoes: chausser / TRAVEL SHOES Straight Tip Rain BL

Turtleneck: gicipi / Turtleneck Cut-and-Sew

Denim: FOB FACTORY / Women's G1138 ST.SLIM WA Denim Pants

Bag: PATRICK STEPHAN / [Special Order] 3-Way Leather Pochette enveloppe BLACK

The Striped Shirt Dress has an atmospheric, long-length silhouette that dips down at the back, and it's a single piece that can be worn either as a dress or as an outer layer. We set a difference of more than 10cm in length between the front and back body, and added deep slits at the sides so the fabric moves naturally as you walk.

Just like the collarless shirt, the dress creates soft folds when the sleeves are rolled up, letting you enjoy its three-dimensional feel. The design has just a slight drop to the shoulder, so the area around the shoulders won't feel tight when worn with the top two buttons undone. Combined with a touch of relaxed, casual impression, it strikes an exquisite balance between casual and refined.

Another point we paid close attention to is the tenhaba, or the width of the neck opening. In a typical shirt, when the top button is closed, the collar sits snugly against the neck. Here, we made the tenhaba wider, so that even with the top button closed, there's a relaxed gap between the neck and the collar, keeping the look from feeling too formal. We also fine-tuned the size of the collar itself, making it just slightly larger so it takes on a beautiful shape when worn with the collar pulled back off the neck.

The buttons other than the top one are hidden buttons (a fly-front, or "hiyoku," construction), so they don't show once fastened, giving the piece a clean, streamlined look. Since we designed this to also be worn as a shirt coat, we made sure the buttonholes stay hidden even when unbuttoned—a stylish detail.

Normally, with a fly-front construction, the overlapping fabric on top tends to get in the way and make buttoning difficult. For this shirt dress, though, we devised a way to leave the fabric unattached so the buttons are easy to fasten.

One of the appeals of this piece is how versatile it is to style. The side slits are cut fairly deep, so we recommend pairing it with pants or leggings. You can wear the shirt dress on its own as a top, or layer it over a turtleneck or cut-and-sew shirt. Since the fabric has a nice body to it, you can also leave it open and wear it like a shirt coat—the crisp vertical lines it creates look sharp and put-together. We also added pockets on both sides so it's easy to wear as an outer layer.

For the shirt fabric, we chose 80/1 typewriter cloth, which is 100% cotton.

This is a plain-weave fabric made by densely weaving fine, long-fiber, high-quality cotton yarn. Despite being lightweight, it has a good amount of body, and its tightly woven texture means it isn't see-through.

The fabric's name, "typewriter," is said to come from the fact that this type of cloth was once used for the ink ribbons in typewriters, the old printing machines.

The fabric has a smooth touch with a subtle sheen, and can be finished with an iron for a crisp, elegant look, or left unironed for a more relaxed, casual feel. Running it through water tightens the weave even further, and with each wash and dry, you'll notice the fabric growing stronger, with a dry touch reminiscent of Japanese washi paper.

The stripe pattern gives more character than a plain fabric would, and looks put-together even worn on its own. IVORY features gray stripes on a white ground, while GREY has white stripes on a bluish-gray ground. Both are easy-to-match shades, well suited to mixing and matching with other pieces.