Marguerite™ | Elegant Summer Shirt

Long sleeves for the sun, an armhole you can actually reach in, and a hand-drawn front that says something.

Popover shirts have one opening and it stops halfway down the chest, which means the body has to be wide enough to pass your bust with the buttons fastened. Graded up from a small block, it isn't — so every time you put it on you are wrestling it over your shoulders, and every time you take it off you are doing it again. The armhole makes it worse: cut where the pattern says, it binds at the upper arm, and the first time you reach up the entire shirt lifts off your waistband and stays there. Then there is the summer problem — you want long sleeves for the sun, but if the sleeve is narrow you can't push them up when the heat arrives.

Marguerite is cut to remove all three. The body is genuinely wide and the armhole drops deep towards the waist, so it goes over your head with nothing to fight and reaching raises the sleeve instead of the hem. The sleeves are cut roomy at the upper arm and finished with a contrast cuff that is meant to be turned back and left there. The artwork — a drawn hand, sunflowers, daisies and hand-lettered words on blocks of yellow, apricot and cream — is spread across the whole front rather than sitting as a small motif on the chest, so it reads as a piece of artwork at any size.

Why it works

• Wide body with a deep dropped armhole: it goes on over your head without a fight, which is where most popovers fail.
• Batwing sleeve: reaching moves the sleeve, not the hem, so it stays where you put it.
• Roomy sleeves with a contrast turn-back cuff: wide enough at the upper arm to roll and stay rolled.
• Illustration spread across the whole front: not a small chest motif that has to land in one specific place.
• Curved high-low hem: longer at the centre front and back, shorter at the sides.
• Half placket with a soft pointed collar: open or closed at the throat, neither position pulls.

Fit note

Boxy and oversized by design — take your usual size. The weave is fine and lets light through at the hem, so a cami underneath if you'd rather it weren't see-through. The sleeves are meant to be turned back to the grey contrast cuff rather than worn down at the wrist. Sizes M to 4XL.