The men's dress shirt is getting a makeover as retailers try to rev up stagnant sales of what has been a wardrobe staple.
The dress-shirt reinvention features everything from stretch collars to temperature-controlled and sun-protection fabrics and non-wrinkle products. The sellers are borrowing a page from the playbook of athletic-wear makers that have touted high-tech, performance-enhancing clothing for jogging, as well as Starbucks outings, helping transform that category into a burgeoning business.
Now, the dress-shirt industry is banking on technological upgrades, as well as slim fits and patterns to get a much-needed lift.
"The consumer is responding to technology," said Richard Deck, president of PVH Canada, whose parent PVH Corp. of New York is North America's largest dress-shirt producer with lines such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Van Heusen. "It's a differentiator for brands. That has been part of what is starting to refuel our dress-shirt market."
Dress shirts have been swept up in the shifting fashion trends as men increasingly ditch the neck tie, suit and matching shirt in search of a more relaxed look. So-called athleisure wear is seeping into everyday wardrobes and often replacing dressier pieces while low-cost powerhouses such as Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) of Sweden and U.S.-based Amazon.com Inc. are pushing more into dress shirts, squeezing prices and stealing customers.
In the 12 months ended June 30, Canadian men's dress-shirt sales tumbled 9.7 per cent to $518-million after a bit of a rebound the previous year, market researcher NPD Group Canada found. But the latest annual revenues are still 14.5 per cent below the $593-million of sales in that segment in 2012, NPD data show.
At the same time, the average price of dress shirts dropped 2.5 per cent to $32.73 in the 2016 period from a year earlier, NPD says.
"Increased competition from lower-price new entrants drives markdowns, which equals less sales – hence the lower average price," said Sandy Silva, fashion-industry analyst at NPD.
"There is an increasing presence of athlesuire, which tends to blur the lines of how people dress. There is less of a hard line between athletic wear, day wear, lounge wear and, in some cases, work wear."
Innovations to dress shirts include four-way stretch materials, anti-microbial fabrics and stay-white items. A growing band of retailers are offering custom dress shirts as online players roll out personalized styles. The initiatives can come at a premium price, sometimes as much as 50 per cent more than the comparable regular product.
Moores, one of the country's largest men's-wear retailers, is launching Calvin Klein "flex" collar and, soon, "infinite" bright white shirts, touting new technologies to keep the collar flexible, in the former case, and the shirt white through multiple washings, in the latter, said Richard Bull, vice-president of merchandising at Moores.
The infinite non-iron, stretch-collar shirt, for example, is tested to stay white through at least 40 washes, he said. It will sell for $120, compared with $94.50 for its regular Calvin Klein shirt, he said.
As well, Moores will introduce this fall an "Awear-Tech" Kenneth Cole $99.99 dress shirt, which is being promoted as helping to regulate body temperature, keeping it at a steady 37.5 C, he said.
"Technology and comfort are more than a trend in men's wear – it's a wave," he said. "It will stimulate purchasing of dress shirts among people who think they have enough dress shirts … 2017 will see the hopeful, explosive expansion of dress shirts [sales] again."
Another fast-emerging wave is customized dress shirts, including among e-commerce players. Moores launched its own custom dress shirts in the spring for $125 to $150 – compared with $90 to $100 for regular shirts – with softer fabrics and an array of collar, cuff and other options, Mr. Bull said.
Moores custom-shirt sales have so far been stronger than it expected, he said. And once a man has bought one custom item, he tends to come back for more, he said. "It's an easy second sale."
Still, executives at high-end retailers, such as men's-wear specialist Harry Rosen Inc. and Seattle-based fashion chain Nordstrom Inc., say they've already seen momentum grow in dress-shirt sales, having introduced some of the high-tech innovations several years ago.
For instance, the premium Eton line, whose shirts cost up to $300, entails an "easy-care" process that alters the molecular structure of the cotton fibres to make them crease-resistant, said Jeff Farbstein, executive vice-president at Harry Rosen. Dress shirts are also becoming multifunctional, allowing them to be dressed up with a suit or dressed down with jeans and helping bolster business, he said. Harry Rosen's overall dress-shirt sales have jumped 10 per cent in each of the past four years, he said.
Online made-to-measure men's-wear seller Indochino.com, which is rapidly adding more dress shirts to its offerings, has seen those sales soar almost 100 per cent in the past year, said Tom Kearnan, director of apparel development. Prices range from $99 to $159. "The line between sports shirt and dress shirt has shrunk."
While fledgling online players are encroaching on traditional retailer territory, Nordstrom has embraced them by carrying some of their lines, such as Ledbury and Bonobos, noted David Witman, an executive vice-president at Nordstrom. "We look to online as a great source of innovation."
Still, the competition is getting fierce. By this fall, Amazon will start stocking PVH's dress shirts in Canada, which it already does in the U.S. "Amazon will take us by storm," said PVH Canada's Mr. Deck. He was sporting a crisp white Calvin Klein non-iron, slim-fit shirt (regular $79.50 to $89.50), PVH's best-selling dress shirt.