Are Button-Down Shirts the New Skirts for Furniture?

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Photo: Rhea Karam

When Gohar World first launched in 2020, the brand debuted with tablecloths fashioned from button-down shirts made out of Egyptian cotton and linen. (Fans can now wear a matching host shirt for $328.) More recently, Sarah Espeute, of Oeuvres Sensibles, handmade a series of shirt curtains for her exhibition “A Well-Dressed Apartment” during Paris Internationale. From my POV, all signs are pointing toward shirts as the new skirts in home decor.

Espeute can’t recall exactly where the idea for “Rideau-Chemise” came from when she first sketched it out in a notebook about five years ago, but she eventually circled back to the drawing once conversations began with Sandie Saul Roy about exploring the “art of being at home” within the walls of the PR legend’s own apartment-gallery. “I think it started from the love of the fabric and different patterns for clothes,” Espeute explains. “Taking the same shape, the same concept, the same confection, and thinking about a shirt that’s not directly a shirt. For me, it was more interesting to see the shirt be more like a curtain than just big clothes.”

Espeute uses the pieces in this exhibition as a vehicle to create a universe, inviting visitors to engage with her surreal takes on a button-down shirt, a kimono, a chemise, and Japanese noren-style trousers. Each curtain is a precious one-of-a-kind piece made exclusively from vintage fabrics sourced in France like antique damask. The French designer plans to further develop the shirt-curtain with her atelier and offer custom orders in early 2025; customers will be able to choose from various options for colors, patterns, and textiles.

Fabiana Faria and Helena Barquet can attest to the influx of button-down shirts becoming an instant crowd pleaser at their store, Coming Soon. From tablecloths to ceramics, customers can’t seem to get enough of formally dressing their tables and serving surrealism in an elegant manner. When the couple released a shirt vase by Lola Mayeras this past September, it immediately sold out despite the $280 price tag. Given that Mayeras comes from a fashion background, she views clay and fabric as one in the same. (Earlier this year, the French designer made a side table sculpture of a stack of pressed and folded shirts.) “I really love optical illusions, [so] I try to twist an idea and put it in ceramic—something that you see everywhere, but you take it, put it in your flat, and now it’s design,” Mayeras says. “I would actually love to do shirts, but real shirts in fabric with color for a real vase.”

Lee Dekel, founder of 100% Silk Shop, is struck by the beauty, humor, and absurdity of it all. “Anything you set on [the shirt tablecloth] instantly looks elevated,” she writes in an email. “Like any good design, they are aspirational. Even if you don’t own the tablecloth, you look at one and see a whole new framework for the life you want to live. It’s traditional, yet other-worldly. Completely liberated from the dictates of fashion and style—which is exactly what makes it so stylish.”

The concept of dressing your home isn’t revolutionary by any means, but part of me suspects that this is a new symptom of the corporate fetish trend rearing its perfectly slicked-back-bob head. Dekel argues that “fantasy cream puff dressing is taking a pause and people are very interested in office clothes, pieces they can move and live in.” Mayeras couldn’t agree more, insisting that “design follows fashion in terms of ideas, that’s for sure.” Barquet thinks there are so many aspects to this ongoing shift toward dress shirts in general, citing John F. Kennedy Jr.’s timeless style as a primary reference for the current cultural zeitgeist.

The everlasting appeal of the classic button-down “boyfriend shirt” might be another contributing factor. “There’s definitely that beauty to people just wearing [dress] shirts right now,” Barquet explains. “That transcends into no matter what your aesthetic is at home, you’re going to think this is going to work with anything—any decor, any vibe—you’re trying to do because that’s how we’re dressing too.”

There’s no skirting around politics and with the majority of American voters pandering to a presidential candidate pushing for more conservative values this election, the body has become weaponized for power and control. Prior to the pandemic, nudity was one of the prime design tropes for the “millennial aesthetic”—it was quite rare to see an apartment without boobs or butts on the bathroom floor, provocative planters standing in for cheeky conversation pieces, and a nude-toned palette to top it all off. Were you actually a supporter of the “body positivity” movement if you weren’t reclaiming the female form through evocative art or decor?

But during quarantine, the cottagecore fantasy was sold as the ultimate escape from the chaos and uncertainty that consumed us before escalating to trad wifery. Since then, the vibe has drastically shifted from risqué to restrained trends as evidenced by the recent revival of Victorian and medieval era motifs. In this new age of body horror, we’ve traded baring it all and having nothing to hide for “clean” and sterile aesthetics, suggesting that the days of objectifying our bodies on our own terms are seemingly over. (The demurity of it all!) While making this transition could easily be mistaken as a form of “adulting,” what if we’re subconsciously following suit by covering up?

As Espeute eloquently points out, “it’s complicated to find a real idea very original.” So, what’s the harm in putting wearables on your furniture and decor? If you want to get really literal with it, look no further than Chen & Kai’s leg bowls with leg warmers and boots. “There’s this other bend of a mind-altering enthusiasm around it so that makes sense too,” Barquet explains. “You want the things in your house to look strange and people have more confidence to do it.” Faria is reminded of past desires to accessorize rugs the same way that Sandy Liang used to pierce her clothes with earrings. “Accessorize the things, the things want accessories,” she adds.

For anyone with children, a shirt tablecloth offers an invitation to make a mess and get dressed in your decor. “I am a fan of plenty and because I have two small kids keeping anything clean—shirts and tablecloths—is another challenge, but the spilled wine doesn’t look bad on it either,” Dekel notes. “A great dinner is made up of equal parts food and conversation, and this is a great conversation piece (bonus that it doesn’t block your view of anyone at the table).”

I’ll always find an excuse to return to the complicated case of the couch cover, an untapped market with endless potential. As the Serbian designer Ana Kraš previously pointed out, these types of products “make it possible for people to change their spaces a bit more like the freedom they have in dressing themselves.” Bengt Thornefors and Nina Norgen of Magniberg have been on the same mission of presenting textiles in a way that gives people the opportunity to combine contrasting fabrics and “dress their bed as they dress themselves.” Now, the courtesy seems to be extended to tables and windows too—no surface is off limits for the occasion.

“Your home should be an extension of who you are and how you feel, a place where your mind can feel calm and inspired, surrounded by what you find most beautiful at any given moment,” says Dekel. “I’m also a big proponent of the idea that a good textile can be used in a multitude of ways—draped on a table, wrapped around your waist, hanging on a dowel, etc.”

When you’re playing house, does it even matter who gets to have the last laugh? “We saw a girl who works for [Gohar World] wearing the [host] shirt,” Barquet says before getting cut off. “We thought it was a tablecloth,” Faria interrupts. “We were like, ‘Are you wearing the tablecloth?’” Barquet laughs before adding, “They always did say to us, you could wear it as a poncho, almost like an apron, and then put it on your table.”

Gohar World Shirt Tablecloth II

$268.00, Coming Soon

Gohar World Shirt Tablecloth

$268.00, Coming Soon

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest