The Ventilated Shirt

The BR Ventilated Shirt was originally manufactured for the British Army for use in tropical outposts. The cotton shirt is soft and light with an intricate weave to allow breathability. Introduced in 1983 it was sold in both short and long sleeves, with the short sleeved version selling until 1988. Interestingly, the earliest long-sleeved “Authentic British” version was made in the UK, while the short-sleeved version is imported from India.

The Long Sleeved Ventilated Shirt

On Page 108 of Wild Company, Mel and Patricia mention contracting with the manufacturer during their first visit to the U.K. and that story is repeated in the catalog copy:

From the 1984 Catalogue: “We went to the English factory that made the original cellular cotton for British troops and had our fabric specially woven there; then, for tailoring, we traced down the company that manufactures Her Majesty’s army’s shirts to this day. Finally, we had the horn buttons flown in from Canada. A top-hole shirt if we do say so-the finest of it’s kind we’ve ever offered. (Ever even seen, for that matter.)”

The example below from my collection is one of these early U.K versions sold in 1984 . Note the large BR tag. (I believe the other numbered tags in the collar are residual dry cleaning tags.)

By 1985 the long-sleeved version is also being made in India, though only in WHITE. The Summer 1985 catalogue added a lot of flair and legend to the India-centered copy for the Long Sleeved Ventilated Shirt: “It was 1846 when a Lieutenant named Harry Lumsden, serving her Majesty in the burden of Indoa, noticed his stiff upper lip starting to wilt. He immediately had himself and his soldiers refitted into ventilated shirts made from the finest local cotton. On our last trip to India we came back with an updated version of Harry’s breathable shirt. The ventilated cotton has an average of 195 cooling air chambers per square inch, pus all the amenities of expert tailoring. For sahibs, memsahibs, or Manhattanites touring the hot, damp or duty corners of our Earth.”

The Short Sleeved Ventilated Shirt

The Summer 1983 catalogue introduced the Short Sleeved Ventilated Shirt as the “Ventilated Bush Shirt”. The shirt appeared again in the Summer 1984 catalogue as the “Ventilated Shirt” and was a regular item in the catalog until Summer 1988, outlasting the long sleeve version by three years.

The catalogue copy laid it on rather thick about the oppressive heat of the India in the era of colonial rule….From the catalogues: “ Some most definitely do NOT like it hot. Englishmen, in particular. You then can imagine, indeed, what a burden it was for His Majesty to maintain the glories of the Empire in such a blistering, dusty, absolutely wretchedly uncivilized, godawful, overbooked, undernourished, misplaced Hades as the Colony of India. For those British subjects attending to His Majesty’s interests in this unspeakable climate came word from Buckingham, find them something decent to wear. And so Britain’s finest textile lords were called upon to develop a special ventilated all-cotton bush cloth that would spare a gentleman India’s worst punishment. We’ve now gone back to India to have it made again into our own ventilated bush shirt. Equally suitable for ladies and gentlemen traveling in the tropics.”