Shirts with microfiber for smartphones

Smears on the iPhone, dust on the computer tablet and grease on the sunglasses: these inevitable irritations provoke a common response among neat freaks on the move. People use their shirt-tails to buff off fingerprints or fuzz. Nat Disston, a designer with New York-based clothing line VoyVoy, realized the implications of this universal cleaning ploy when returning home from a Florida vacation. “I pulled my sunglasses out of my bag and began wiping some salt from the beach off the lenses with my shirt tail,” he says. “That triggered the idea.” Disston designed a classic, white button-down Oxford shirt with a microfiber patch suitable for cleaning glasses, phones and camera lenses hidden beneath the front right shirt-tail.

His first prototype used a microfiber that was machine washable, affordable and dense, which turned out to be perfect for cleaning glasses, but not so perfect for bonding to the shirt-tail. A strong bond created strain on the front of the shirt and made the corner with the secret patch stiff. Disston and his colleagues went with a light bond microfiber and hand stitching, making the patch invisible, lightweight and secure. The first run of the Pocket Square™ design sold out immediately, but a waiting list is available for fingerprint phobics.