Handmade is a word that has been stretched. Anyone setting out to buy a handmade linen shirt will find it attached to garments of very different origins, and it is worth being clear about what it can reasonably mean. In shirtmaking it does not usually mean sewn without a machine. It means that a person cut the cloth and a person sewed the shirt, guiding each seam, in a workroom small enough for someone to be answerable for the result. The difference from an automated line lies in attention, and attention leaves evidence.

A buyer is entitled to a few plain questions, and a maker who works by hand will answer them without difficulty. Where is the shirt made, and by whom? Where was the cloth woven, and from what? What are the buttons? How many colourways and sizes are kept, and are they made in small numbers? PP's answers are short. The garments are handmade in the Dubai atelier and in Belgium. The cloth is linen, much of it certified Belgian linen. The buttons are seashell on most shirts and walnut on the Monte-Carlo Male.

Begin with the cloth, because nothing done afterwards can improve it. Online, where the fabric cannot be touched, precision of language is the substitute for the hand. The description should say 100% linen without qualification. If it says Belgian linen, it should be able to say which colourways carry the certification, since a certification mark belongs to specific cloth and not to a brand as a whole. PP states the distinction by colourway: Belgian linen where it applies, natural linen elsewhere. Certified cloth is accompanied by a certificate of origin.

Then look at the making, in photographs if not in person. Seams should lie flat and run straight. The placket, the strip that carries the buttons, should be even from collar to hem. Buttonholes should be dense and clean at the edges, and each button should sit on a firm stitch with a little shank so the cloth is not strained when it closes. A natural button tells its own story: seashell is cool to the touch and no two are alike in their markings. None of this is ornament. These are the places where care, or the lack of it, shows first.

The PP men's shirts differ in cut and mood, and choosing among them is the pleasant part. The Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt is the broadest in colour, with twelve colourways from White and Oyster to Dubarry, Violet and Coral Orange. The Laos Long Sleeve comes in Beige Cream, Oyster and Dark Blue. The Cuba is the relaxed one. The Bliss is long sleeved, in six colourways. The Vibes is oversized and shorter in the body, and includes Orchid. The Monte-Carlo Male, in Oatmeal, Oyster and Vanille, is the one with walnut buttons. All are gathered in the PP linen shirts collection.

For women the handmade shirt takes several forms. The Amelia linen dress shirt falls to the thigh and comes in eight colourways, five in Belgian linen and three, Lemon, Pink and Blue, in natural linen. The PP linen blouse is a separate garment, shorter, with long sleeves, in Lemon, Orchid, Pink and Sky Blue. The HER Laos Linen Shirt and HER Cuba Linen Shirt follow the lines of the men's shirts, and the ladies linen set pairs a blouse with shorts. The women's linen collection shows them together.

Size is where buying online most often goes wrong, and linen leaves less margin than a knit, because it has almost no stretch. The reliable method is to ignore the letter on the label of a shirt already owned and measure the shirt itself: lay it flat, measure across the chest from armpit to armpit, across the shoulders, and from collar seam to hem, then compare with the maker's size chart. Most PP men's shirts run from S to 4XL. The house publishes its size charts, and size exchanges are available subject to current PP policy; the linen shirt size guide walks through the measurements.

There remains the question of where. The whole collection is available online. For those who prefer to see a shirt before deciding, PP is presented in a small number of resort boutiques: in Dubai, at Park Hyatt Dubai and its Lagoon Beach Club, at Surf Club Dubai and at Sofitel The Palm Beach Resort; in Greece, at One&Only Aesthesis near Athens and One&Only Kéa Island; in Italy, at Tiziano Brunetto in Santa Margherita Ligure, beside Portofino; and at Four Seasons Resort and Residences, Río Grande, Puerto Rico. Ranges differ from one address to another.

A handmade linen shirt asks for a little care in return and rewards it for years. Wash it at 30°C on a gentle cycle, dry it in the air, and iron it slightly damp or not at all. It will grow softer with every wash, and the creases it gathers are part of the cloth. Our essay on what it means when a shirt is truly handmade considers the craft more closely. What a buyer is choosing, in the end, is not a label but a set of decisions made by other people: about a plant, a cloth, a button and a seam.

The PP Atelier in Dubai  ·  Buying a Linen Shirt: Men  ·  The Linen Shirt Button Guide