How to wear a black linen shirt
White linen is what everyone buys for summer. Black linen is what the subjects wear. It photographs like a shadow, it hides the creases white shows, and after three washes it drapes instead of standing up. This is how the archive wears File 004.
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Why black, and why washed
Raw linen is stiff. Garment-dyed and washed linen has already been through the part that hurts: the fibre has broken in, the colour has settled into a carbon black that reads soft rather than flat, and the shirt arrives looking like it has been yours for a season. The Lino Privata shirt is cut from a cotton-linen weave for that reason. Pure linen creases into sharp lines; the cotton in the blend rounds them off, so the shirt looks lived-in, not slept-in.
Black also does the job white cannot at night. The subjects are photographed at 02:47 on a terrace above Lake Como, not at a beach club at noon. Black linen belongs to that hour.
The fit: relaxed body, sleeves made to roll
A linen shirt that fits like a dress shirt defeats the fabric. File 004 is relaxed through the body with a single chest pocket and sleeves cut a fraction long so they roll to the elbow and stay there. Subject 01 has a broad build and wears an L; if you sit between sizes, take the larger. The chest measurements, laid flat and doubled, run from 100 cm at XS to 136 cm at 3XL, and the size guide on the file shows all of them.
Wear it open at the collar with two buttons undone. Tucked into high-rise trousers it reads tailored; left out over the base tee it reads like the end of a long dinner. Both are correct.
What to wear it with
The pairing that built the archive is black linen over ivory. The Milano Prestige trousers are a fine-rib pleated trouser in ivory with side adjusters and turn-ups; the contrast does the work, so nothing else needs to. On the feet, a leather slide, never a sneaker. The Porto slide has a cut-out upper and a leather sole and is the difference between a holiday outfit and a look.
For the white colourway of the same shirt, invert it: white linen over the black Nero trousers. Same three pieces, two entirely different evenings.
Care
Cold wash, line dry, never the tumble dryer. Linen dries fast and the dryer is what makes it shrink and go dull. Steam it if you must, iron it never; the point of a washed shirt is that it does not need to be pressed. Every file is cut in a run of twelve per size. When your size is gone, it is gone.