Western Rise Limitless Merino Short Sleeve Review
Merino button up - built for warmer weather.
Western Rise Limitless Merino Short Sleeve Review Introduction
Western Rise - we’re back with another one. This time, a review on a variation of one of their classics - the Limitless Merino button up shirt. Short sleeves.
The Limitless line was launched way back a few years ago, in fact the original button down was one of my very early reviews when we were just a small player on the playground trying to fight off the bullies from the bigger sites, lol. Not only did they release a polo version, but based on the success of the original long sleeve button up, WR decided to try their hand with a short sleeve version for warmer climates. Enter the short sleeve Limitless button up shirt.
This is my review of the Western Rise Limitless Short Sleeve Shirt. I took it on a trip with me to China (Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenyang) with a quick stop off in Kuala Lumpur.
In case there are no sales when you read this, get all the way through the review to find a discount code at the end.
As always for full transparency, I did ask Western Rise to send me a piece for review and they were kind enough to say yes. I also bought one color on my own. That said, they had no input into the review itself or my comments on the shirt that you see here. This is not sponsored. I do use affiliate links which help to support the site if you decide to use them to make a purchase, but you’re under no obligation to do so and there’s no additional cost to you. Thanks for stopping by!
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Limitless Merino Short Sleeve Overview
New fav breakfast item. Savory tofu pudding with fixings.
I think we can be pretty quick on this section. The Limitless line is built on one thing: merino is good for travel. So, as they usually do, Western Rise saw what was in the market and felt that they could do better.
Their Limitless line is merino, yes, but it’s also a slight blend. This helps to make it a little more durable and easier to wash.
Another of the goals they set out to accomplish with this shirt is to help you travel better with a tech shirt that does all the things you’d want in a travel shirt…without you having to look like a numpty while you do it. In my experience, merino clothing hasn’t always been the best in the fit department and can look pretty…..not great we’ll say. But, more on this later to see if they accomplished this.
The shirt comes in the main variations you’d need - a couple of blues, a gray, and a black. This is intended to help you with that capsule packing. For the review today, I have the light blue but I also have a black at home and I’ll show you how both fit.
It retails for $108.00 USD and they do often have sales of late.
Limitless Merino Short Sleeve Fit
Fabric Close Up
Discussing the fit on the short sleeve, I think there are a lot of body types that are going to do well with this one. I’m going to be up front and remind you of an issue I found on the long sleeve: the sleeves are known to be pretty long. Like, longer than they should be for the pattern/sizes. To me, you can actually see this in the model shots on the website. I like my long sleeve, but I had it tailored because I’m short and they were too long in the small.
Now, this review is about the short sleeve, but I had my reservations on what I’d get there. Turns out, the sleeve length on the short sleeve is solid. I think they did much better on this one. I could go a little shorter, but I think as a balance it’s good. Will be perfect on some, and that’s off-the-rack clothing.
Through the shoulders, also pretty good. I’m short but have broad shoulders and I didn’t get any weird tightness like I did in the ABC Commission shirt.
Length of the shirt in general? Have to take a few points off here. It’s still longer than I’d like, and to be up front I did throw it in the dryer to try and help the fit a little. It did a bit, but my dryer only does low heat, so it didn’t affect it much. YMMV on a higher heat setting. This is super easy to have a tailor adjust it though. I think it could be hemmed from anywhere from 1 inch to 2 inches depending on your height. Maybe WR could make that change themselves.
I did also have two colors in the same size and I had some inconsistencies in the blue vs the black. The black fit me pretty well right out of the gate. The blue was clearly bigger on me, even though they shouldn’t be. So, something to work on there. I’ve tried to show this in the fit pictures.
Looking back at some of the pictures taken in the shirt, the only real issue I have with the fit is the length. I’m mostly liking how it fits me otherwise. I’ll easily fix that length however. Even without a hem, I think it looks pretty solid in most cases. Shout out to the Qingdao St Regis library for the assist on the location pics.
Note, the shots of me on location with the blue were AFTER a wash and low heat dry. This did improve it slightly.
The Performance
Famous Shanghai skyline.
I honestly didn't need to push this one TOO hard while on-trip. I wore it multiple times out and about, for breakfasts since I was in two/three high end hotels and didn’t want to look like a slob (which again, is why you’d want this shirt with you, that’s the point).
That said I did wear it for a day of sightseeing when I had a family lunch after at a real restaurant. No smell after both of those. Temps up around 25C.
And the kicker - I changed my mind last minute and decided to wear it for my flight home. Why? Because it was the longest flight in the world from Singapore to JFK - 18hrs. Nonstop. If a shirt can survive that without smelling, amen brother. Shout out Hulk Hogan. (I did take the shirt off for sleeping and replaced with a t-shirt).
Since I was wearing unscented antiperspirant, the shirt held up with flying colors. As we know with previous versions of this shirt, the material holds up really well as you’d expect from merino in the smell department. Now as always YMMV on this and it depends on your chemistry, what you wear for underarm products, and finally what activity you do.
When I got home to Brooklyn, nary a smell was to be found on the material. Ice Cube declares it was a good day.
But, I am quite happy with how this does in most normal use cases. You can definitely get many wears out of this, especially if you’re just wearing it for your evenings or fancy breakfasts. Save the t-shirts for your daily activities, or use this for daily activities on t-shirt wash days.
The Good
Noodles for breakfast? Yes!
The look and materials on this shirt are great. For the look, it’s a real live shirt, Pinocchio. You can wear it in any situation you’d wear a short sleeve button down. Nice hotel meals, out around town, out to bars, on the resort, etc.
The merino allows it to work as a performance shirt without anyone knowing. It does very well here.
Sleeve length on the short sleeve version is an improvement for me from the long sleeve. I’d say it's the proper length for the sizing. Good to see that in play.
The color options are perfect. It makes capsule clothing easy without you being forced to be the travel ninja in all black. It’s cool if that’s your thing, but this opens it up a little for those that don’t dig that.
As noted above, it really did shine in the sightseeing-to-restaurant lunch duty. Just exactly what you’d want this shirt to be able to do.
The Bad
On the overall fit, there are some inconsistencies between same size-different colors. Could be I just had a lemon, but I’m just telling it like I see it from my personal experience. Furthermore, I think the shirt is slightly too long. I’d like to see it shorter in the hem so you don’t need to tailor it. I understand planning for different body types is hard, but you shouldn’t need to be 5’10 for the length to be right on a size small. Being fair, it’s easily fixed and the last button is high enough up that you don’t need to worry about a hem screwing with the buttons.
Collar curl. I wish they kept this as either an oxford style collar, or had hidden collar stays underneath to keep them from curling. Not the end of the world and you can use a warm iron on the collar if you are careful, but I’m a huge fan of button-down oxford collars. Not only for the clean look but it’s less maintenance. Something to think about for future iterations WR!
The Improvement Requests
OK so to summarize what I think they can improve on this shirt:
Length of the hem. This could be much much shorter.
Ideally oxford style button down collars, or at the least some hidden collar stays underneath.
Maybe tighten up the consistency of sizing across colors.
Final Thoughts On My Western Rise Limitless Merino Short Sleeve Review
There we go - a nice look at the short sleeve version of Western Rise’s champion travel shirt for the clean cut folks out there. A classic look in modern technical fabrics.
For the most part, when considering many body types and not just mine, I think in terms of purpose WR succeeded here just like their long sleeve version in creating a shirt that helps you be travel friendly with performance aspects like merino goodness and low wrinkles (nothing is wrinkle free!). This allows you to still look put together while out on the road. And I should say, the wrinkle performance on this shirt is outstanding.
This is of course personal but from what I’ve seen on other reviews, I like the cuts on the WR shirts much more than a competitor such as Wool and Prince. Their American boxy cut just is not my thing and from all the fits I’ve seen on others, they are squarely in that camp (think baggy back when tucked in, too baggy sleeves, etc.). It’s prevented me from even buying them to try as I can see it a mile away.
Ultimately, this can help you stay numpty-free while taking less clothes. And isn’t that all that a smart wanderer wants?
Like the long sleeve, this gets my vote for one of the first travel shirts you should check out if you’re in the market for one. It could be in your stable for a long time if you dig the fit since the overall quality and performance is there.
In case there are no sales going on - use WANDER15 for 15% off your purchase! (Cannot be combined with Sales)
As always with most brands, I’d suggest buying directly through their website for best service.
Wander more - and wander smarter everyone.
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