Ever since we’ve been taught to clean surfaces with a piece of cloth, it’s been human instinct to wipe smartphones and glasses with a section of our shirt. It’s not our fault – most people don’t carry microfiber clothes everywhere they go, and the ends of our shirts are so much more convenient. Which is why this VoyVoy Summer Oxford shirt with a microfiber cloth sewn on the underside of the shirt makes so much sense. It’s not a solution mom would be proud of, but it’s one she secretly wish existed years before.
Instead of reaching inside your pocket for a cleaning wipe, the microfiber cloth is already there and ready to go. There’s no need to change your ritual or routine – the sewn-in cloth will guarantee a better clean than most shirt materials. It’s also safer on more delicate surfaces, like glasses with anti-reflective coating or camera lens.
New York-based designer Nat Disston said the inspiration for the shirt came after returning from a beach vacation. “I pulled my sunglasses out of my bag and began wiping some salt from the beach off the lenses with my shirt tail. That triggered the idea,” Disston tells Co.Design. Using your shirt to clean glass surfaces was never a taught concept, just an oddly common human behavior. You’re not supposed to clean things this way, but if you’re going to do it anyway, it might as well be optimized.
“I spent that week figuring out the logistics of the addition… [and] made a prototype myself that night to see how the patch looked, where it would go, and how big it would be,” he says. “I sourced a fabric that was machine washable, affordable, and a dense microfiber – perfect for cleaning glasses.”
If you’re thinking you could just go home, find one of those microfiber squares you get with new pairs of glasses and glue them onto your shirt to recreate Disston’s shirt, you’d be mistaken. “Fusing or bonding the fabric entirely would cause some issues – a strong bond may create a little stain on the front side of the shirt. It would also make this corner of the shirt tail very stiff. A lighter bond would compromise durability, as it could lose its bond with wear and tear,” Disston explains of his experiment in creating the final prototype. After coming up with the ideal solution, the final VoyVoy shirt shows no sign of a microfiber cloth underneath while staying lightweight and secure. Of course, it’s also handy for when you need to give your phone and glasses a quick wipe from all the fingerprint or rain smudges.
The first round of the VoyVoy Oxford shirt has already sold out, but you can get on the waitlist for the next round if you’re willing to fork $98 per shirt.
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