Dress shirts with yokes are often associated with country and western styles, like those of cowboys. I do dress shirts with yokes because they’re like canvases upon which I can show something, or are just opportunities to add a little colour to a shirt. However, I do them with Mandarin (or band) collars, tunic style not meant to be tucked in at the waist. The combination means I often joke about my style as that of an Asian cowboy. 🙂

In this dress shirt, I really push the limits of that cowboy portion by using tapestry that had pictures of cowboys on horses at rodeo events for yokes. I saw the tapesty one day in Fabricville around here and just knew immediately I had to make a yoked shirt with them on the yoke, surrounded by dark blue denim, to be worn with jeans of the same or similarly dark denim. That’s because cowboys often wear jeans of denim. And with that V shaped yoke, I made V shaped cuffs, as seen before in my other dress shirt designs (KLPJs).

It took me a day and a half of sewing to get this flash of an idea done, but I’m glad I did. I underlined the tapestry with broad cloth of similar colour so as to be gentle on my skin. The denim was the colour I wanted, but stretch denim so I had to interface the bottom to get a solid rather than wavy look. Overall, the slight stiffness of the fabric and the excellent tailoring fit to me (wish I had a pic now) meant the thing looked really sharp on me. I can’t wait until next casual Friday when I can wear this to work with jeans… and just maybe a cowboy hat! 🙂

As for rating, the tapestry wasn’t the sharpest of images. There definitely wasn’t enough separation between repeating motifs (nor many) that I could have matched the front yoke panels to look seamless. The denim wasn’t the best for the job, either. However, I think I did a good job to show what can be done, and given how good it looks on me, I’ll give it a silver rating.

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