Discover how a BACCUS shirt is born

Some days you look at your wardrobe and think: why do I have so many shirts and none that I like? The answer is usually the same. Shirts that no longer fit as they should, that wrinkle badly, that don't breathe, that fall apart after three washes. Shirts that were cheap at first but expensive in the end.

A BACCUS shirt is different because it was born different. It is the result of conscious choices, selected suppliers, hands that know what they are doing. And there is a place where all this happens, step by step: Gondomar, in Porto. This is how a shirt that works is born.

A shirt is made of fabric. Obvious. But the obvious is precisely where most fail. A cheap fabric wrinkles easily, fades quickly, loses structure. A good fabric ages well. It even improves with use. This is not romanticism, it is knowledge of the yarns and fibres of the fabrics used by BACCUS.

The brand works with leading European weavers: mainly Italy, because there the textile industry has centuries of accumulated knowledge. Pure linen for summer, good quality cotton for durability, blends designed to work in Portugal all year round. Each roll of fabric arrives with its own characteristics: grammage, breathability, drape, weight. Nothing is replaceable, nothing is generic.

Then comes the part that many ignore, the tactile analysis, the feel. An experienced hand touches the fabric, understands its structure, imagines how it will fall on the body of the wearer. No specification sheet can replace this. The fabric is touched, folded, stretched. Only then is it approved to enter the premises.

The fabrics chosen for each collection and season reflect this philosophy. In the SS26 collection, we selected pure linen in neutral colours, and linen and cotton in different combinations that provide durability without losing lightness. No fabric is synthetic or mixed with fibres for convenience. The natural structure of the yarn is respected.

With the fabric chosen, the pattern is the next critical step. BACCUS doesn't invent new patterns every year. We use patterns developed over decades, refined through hundreds, thousands of shirts. Body, sleeves, collar, front, back: each piece is calculated so that the shirt falls correctly on the body, regardless of who wears it.

Cutting happens on work tables where the fabric is carefully aligned. The scissors follow the pattern with a precision that seems simple but isn't. An extra centimetre on the sleeve creates disproportion. A biased cut means the shirt will be biased. A detail on the collar ignored means it won't close properly. That's why this step is not delegated to just anyone. Experienced people control every cut, every alignment, every movement of the scissors.

The cut pieces arrive in the hands of the seamstresses. And this is where everything changes levels. The operator needs accumulated knowledge to know when the thread is tense, when it is weak. A too tight stitch wrinkles the fabric. A too loose stitch becomes fragile. This balance is not taught in any school. It is learned with years of practice, by listening to the sound of the machine, by feeling the resistance of the fabric against the needle.

The main seams are double for durability. The collar is sewn, turned, and secured with millimeter precision. The sleeves take shape through stitching that must follow the natural curve of the arm. All this takes time. A quality BACCUS shirt takes between 5 to 8 hours of sewing, depending on the complexity. This is not a miscalculation, it is the reality.

After sewing, the shirt enters a quality control phase that is industrial level but with an artisanal touch. Each shirt is manually inspected, section by section. The seams are reviewed. The buttons are checked for solidity. The fabric is examined under light to find any overlooked defects. Small details that the common customer doesn't notice, but that make the difference between a shirt that lasts a few months and a shirt that lasts years.

The hem is pressed with controlled temperature and pressure. The sleeves are aligned so that they fall naturally on the body. The overall shape of the shirt is checked: is it symmetrical? Are the buttons aligned? Does the collar have the correct stiffness? All this is done by people who know BACCUS shirts as intimately as those who make them every day. It's not a robotic checklist. It's artisanal and rigorous at the same time.

A shirt that doesn't pass? It's rejected. No exceptions, no "it'll pass like this". Quality is the standard, not the exception.

The SS26 striped linen and cotton collection (55% linen, 45% cotton) is the result of all this work: fabric selection, precise cutting, careful stitching, rigorous control. There are four main colours that cover most situations a masculine wardrobe needs.

Beige for those who want total neutrality, which matches everything and disappears into the context. Blue for secure elegance, the colour that always works, in any season and at any time of day. Green for those who want personality but without exaggeration, a tone that has character. Orange for those who prefer to be seen, for those who understand that colour is part of style.

All production takes place in Portugal. It is not a marketing detail. It is the reason why quality is consistent, why the person who sews the shirt knows the quality standards because they have worked there for years.

Portugal has a textile industry with centuries of history. There is accumulated knowledge that cannot be bought online. There are masters who taught apprentices, who taught other apprentices. There are quality standards that come from generations of people who respect well-done work. BACCUS is not reinventing the wheel. It is using a wheel that has worked for centuries and improving it with technology and European standards.

The result? A shirt made by a country that understands shirts. That is tested and reviewed by eyes that know shirts. That is corrected by hands that know how to correct shirts. This is how work functions when it's done on the ground with decades of experience.