The Self‑Cultivation of a White Shirt: MARYLING’s Philosophy of Subtraction

In the studio at MARYLING’s Milan headquarters, a white shirt has long lived on Creative Director Avshalom Gur’s desk. Not a “piece” displayed behind glass, but a prototype repeatedly taken apart and sewn back together — the collar’s curve reworked a dozen times, the shoulder line moved inward by two millimetres, the cuff button shifted upward by half a centimetre.

“Everyone thinks a white shirt is the simplest thing,” Gur said in a rare media interview. “But it’s exactly the opposite. The simpler the garment, the fewer places there are to hide a mistake.”

That may well be why MARYLING has stayed quietly apart from the noise of fashion. They don’t chase dramatic silhouettes or rely on conspicuous logos. Instead, they have chosen a harder path: pursuing perfection through subtraction.

The Invisible Complexity: The Making of a White Shirt

A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, Gur twice won the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN award — a honour previously given to Alexander McQueen and Christopher Kane. Yet unlike their bold, provocative styles, Gur has applied his training to an almost obsessive refinement of detail.

Take the classic MARYLING white shirt:

The collar – Instead of a common point collar or Windsor style, Gur created a slightly raised “swallow‑tail curve”. It went through twelve samples: too much lift looked aggressive, too little felt ordinary. The final version finds a subtle balance between formal and relaxed. With the top button undone, the collar falls naturally open, revealing just the right hint of collarbone. Buttoned up, it sits as cleanly as a bespoke dress shirt.

The shoulder seam – Traditional shirt shoulder seams stop abruptly at the acromion, creating a hard angle. MARYLING’s seam extends 1.5 cm forward before curving down in an almost invisible arc. This softens the shoulder line and prevents the whole shirt from riding up when you raise your arm.

The cuff – The button is not centred, but placed slightly toward the inner wrist. This minute offset means that when the arm hangs naturally, the opening of the cuff angles 15 degrees away from your line of sight — you never see the front of the button, only a clean, oblique line.

Each of these details is nearly imperceptible on its own. But together, they create a feeling that wearers often describe as: “I can’t tell why, but it just feels right.”

Fabric: Making the Body Forget the Clothes

If tailoring is the skeleton, fabric is the skin.

MARYLING’s fabric research team spends much of its time travelling between the textile workshops of Lake Como. Como has been Europe’s silk capital for centuries, supplying many top luxury houses. But MARYLING’s demands are exacting: they want neither lavish jacquards nor brilliant sheen, but “a breathable lightness”.

A spring‑summer MARYLING white shirt uses a blend of Egyptian long‑staple cotton and fine ramie. The cotton provides softness against the skin, while the ramie ensures breathability and crispness. The ratio of the two fibres was adjusted more than thirty times — too much ramie makes the fabric stiff, too much cotton makes it prone to wrinkling and stuffiness.

The final fabric weighs 85 grams per square metre. What does that number mean? A MARYLING white shirt weighs about 120 grams in total — lighter than most smartphones.

“I don’t want people wearing my clothes to constantly tug at them or adjust them,” Gur says. “The best clothes are the ones that make you forget you’re wearing anything at all.”

Real People: How They Wear MARYLING

In the MARYLING archives, there is a backstage photograph from the 2017 Rome Film Festival. In it, Italian actress Nicoletta Romanoff wears a MARYLING white silk shirt with black high‑waisted wide‑leg trousers, quietly talking with a director. No red‑carpet glitz — just the relaxed ease of an open collar.

When a journalist later asked about her look that day, Romanoff said: “I had to be at the festival all day — morning press meetings, afternoon panels, the evening premiere. I couldn’t change three times. That shirt stayed on me from seven in the morning until one the next morning. I even slept for half an hour in the car, and when I woke up, it wasn’t wrinkled.”

Another story comes from a Tokyo‑based curator who preferred to remain unnamed. She wrote on Instagram: “For three months while preparing a large exhibition, I practically lived in the museum. One day a colleague suddenly asked me, ‘Have you been wearing the same white shirt for three days in a row?’ Only then did I realise — yes. But no one had noticed, because it looked fresh every single day.”

These real responses mean more to Gur than any fashion award. “This is what I’m after — clothes serving the person, not the other way around.”

From a White Shirt to a Whole Wardrobe

The white shirt is just one slice of MARYLING’s philosophy. The same subtractive thinking runs through every piece in the collection:

High‑waisted wide‑leg trousers have a 3‑cm anti‑slip strip sewn inside the waistband — not a harsh elastic, but a slightly tacky silk‑like fabric. It keeps a shirt tuck neatly in place, whether you sit or stand, without ever bulging.

Trench coats do away with traditional shoulder epaulettes and storm flaps, but conceal a hidden pleat on the inner upper arm. That pleat allows the back of the coat to stay smooth when you reach forward — whether hailing a taxi or taking a book from a high shelf, the trench keeps its elegant drape.

Dresses have their side seams shifted 2 cm forward, gently drawing the eye toward the centre of the body. This makes the silhouette appear longer and leaner, while the wearer herself never even notices the seam placement.

All these designs share one thing: they are not meant to make the garment “look more special”, but to make the wearer “feel more at ease”.

Slower, to Go Further

In an age of fast fashion, MARYLING has chosen the opposite road.

From initial sketch to final delivery, a MARYLING dress takes eight months on average. Most of that time is spent in a cycle of toiling, modifying, fitting, and re‑modifying. Gur personally tries on every prototype — a male designer wearing women’s clothes may sound odd, but he explains: “I have to feel the fabric’s stretch, the tension at the seams, the resistance when I move. A woman’s body is different from mine, but the physics of comfort is universal.”

This almost obsessive refinement results in a long‑lasting companion in the wardrobe. A customer from Beijing once wrote to the brand: “That MARYLING coat I bought five years ago — I still wear it every week. It never went out of style, and it never lost its shape. It’s like a silent friend who has been with me through my promotion, my move, and becoming a mother for the first time.”

In MARYLING’s understanding, sustainability is not a marketing slogan. It is a garment still looking as good after a hundred wears.

A Final Word

Back to that white shirt on Avshalom Gur’s desk, endlessly deconstructed and rebuilt. It was finally named “La Camicia 01” — 01, because it is a beginning, not an end.

“I wouldn’t call it the perfect white shirt,” Gur says with a smile. “Perfection is a finish line, and a finish line means you stop exploring. I just hope that the person who wears it feels a quiet support — not defined by the clothes, but defining them.”

In an era that urges us to “express ourselves”, MARYLING offers a different kind of wisdom: true elegance is not making people remember what you wore, but making them remember you — the person who, dressed with ease, moves through life with quiet confidence.

And that, perhaps, is the finest self‑cultivation a white shirt can offer.