Before it was a shirt you'd wear in public, the popover was an undershirt: hidden beneath a waistcoat, buttoned up to the chin, in a Victorian era with strict opinions about what a man could show.

Then came Beau Brummell, and the rules loosened. White linen became a statement in its own right, turning the shirt from an undergarment into a symbol of refinement.

A London shirtmaker tightened it back up in 1871, patenting the button-through and sending the popover underground for decades.

It never stayed there for long. Through the 1930s and beyond, it resurfaced and found its way through workwear, sportswear, summer wardrobes. Today, it has settled into a category of its own: a shirt that's smarter than casual and more relaxed than formal, and comfortable being neither.