How Charvet Became the Shirtmaker to Kings and Presidents

Christofle Charvet founded his atelier on the Place Vendome in 1838. Napoleon III, Edward VII, Marcel Proust, and de Gaulle all wore Charvet shirts. The Place Vendome location placed shirts alongside jewellery and haute couture in Paris's most prestigious commercial address.

What set Charvet apart was range: over 6,000 fabrics from Swiss voiles to English poplins, dozens of collar shapes and cuff styles. This depth of choice remains a hallmark, creating bespoke shirts as individual as fingerprints.

The shop is part of the argument. Charvet occupies several floors at 28 Place Vendôme, with an entire level given over to shirtings arranged as a colour gradient, bolt after bolt shading from white through cream and blue to the far end of the spectrum. Nobody needs three hundred whites. The point of the display is that it forces you to notice differences of weave and weight you would otherwise have taken as identical.

Charvet ties deserve equal attention. Produced in-house from silk woven in the firm's own patterns, they are characterised by extraordinary colour vibrancy. The house is famous for saturated hues reflecting distinctly French confidence (https://www.charvet.com).

The bespoke process follows a 180-year ritual. Client selects fabric, collar, cuff, placket, and monogram. Measurements taken by hand. Two fittings: first in toile, second in actual fabric. The finished shirt arrives in a pale blue box tied with ribbon.

The handwork is specific and checkable. Side seams are closed with a single needle in two passes rather than a twin-needle machine in one, which takes longer and lies flatter. Yokes are split so the pattern can be matched to each shoulder. Buttonholes on bespoke shirts are worked by hand, and the mother-of-pearl buttons are cut thick enough to survive a laundry press. Bespoke collars are built with a soft interlining rather than a fused one, which is why they age better.

The ready-to-wear line maintains the handwork ethos. Shirts are cut from the same fabric library with hand-stitched buttonholes and single-needle side seams, finished to standards exceeding most competitors' bespoke offerings.

The firm survived wars and casualisation by remaining unapologetically focused. No sneakers, no hoodies. Just shirts, ties, and accessories at the highest level, for clients who understand the difference. This narrow focus is itself a form of luxury.

The prices are the obvious obstacle. Ready-to-wear starts in the low hundreds of euros, bespoke runs several times that per shirt, and a first bespoke order usually means committing to several at once to justify the pattern-making. For most men a made-to-measure shirt from Turnbull & Asser, Budd or Emma Willis in Jermyn Street, or from a Neapolitan house, delivers the great majority of the difference for a fraction of the outlay. Charvet is the last five per cent, and the last five per cent is always expensive.

For the man seeking the finest shirt money can buy, begin with a bespoke white poplin in a spread collar. The Place Vendome experience is an education: touching fabrics, studying collar variations, observing fitters at work reveals craft most men take for granted.