Walter Gropius Bauhaus T-Shirt

Gropius opened the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919 with an argument that sounds obvious now and was heresy then: that there is no meaningful difference between an artist and a craftsman, and that a building, a chair and a teapot are the same problem at different scales.

The school lasted fourteen years, moved twice, was shut down under political pressure in 1933, and then exported its staff to Chicago, Tel Aviv, London and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they quietly redesigned the twentieth century. Almost everything you own that is plain on purpose comes from this.

Daddy is a Bauhaus man in the way that most people who like clean lines are Bauhaus men without knowing the name. He wears this and enjoys explaining it.

The shirt itself is the good kind of basic: combed ring-spun cotton, preshrunk, side-seamed so it hangs straight, taped shoulders so the collar doesn’t twist after the fortieth wash. It fits like the tee you’ve had for ten years, on day one.

How to wear it

Grey or white tee, straight trousers, one good jacket. Dress it the way the school would have wanted: nothing extra.