Flannel, Check or Plaid: What the Words Actually Mean

Walk into a shop and ask for a flannel and you will be shown a check shirt. Ask for a check shirt and you will be shown a flannel. The two words have collapsed into each other, and the result is that most men end up buying a pattern when what they wanted was a cloth.

Flannel is a cloth. Check is a pattern. Once you can see the difference, you buy better shirts and you stop paying for the wrong thing.

What flannel actually is

Flannel is defined by its finish, not by how it looks. Cotton is woven, then the surface is brushed with fine wire to raise a soft nap. That raised nap traps air against the skin, and trapped air is what makes a shirt warm. Brush both faces of the cloth and you get warmth on the inside and softness on the outside.

Nothing in that description mentions a pattern. A flannel can be checked. It can also be striped, or plain, or a single solid colour. The brush is the flannel. The rest is decoration.

The proof is sitting in the range

The Munro Flannel Shirt has no check on it anywhere. It is plain brushed cotton in solid field colours, with contrast drill cotton reinforcing the places shirts wear through first and deep pleated chest pockets under buttoned flaps. It is a flannel by every measure that counts, and there is not a square on it.

The Brae Flannel Shirt is the same cloth wearing a check, and that check is original to Ghillie rather than lifted from a mill book. Same regular fit, same hidden button-down collar, same brushed cotton. Set the two side by side and the difference between them is what you can see, not what you can feel.

Check, plaid, tartan, gingham

Four words, four different meanings, used almost interchangeably by people selling shirts.

Check

The general British term for any pattern of crossing bands that forms squares. It says nothing about the fibre, the weight or the finish. A check can be printed onto thin poplin or woven into heavy brushed cotton. The word describes the arrangement of colour and nothing else.

Plaid

In American usage, plaid means the same thing as check, which is how it reached British shops. In Scotland a plaid is a garment: a length of cloth worn over the shoulder. Ask for a plaid in Glasgow and ask for one in Georgia and you will be handed two different things.

Tartan

A tartan is a check with rules. The sequence of colours and the widths they repeat in is called a sett, and a named tartan reproduces one specific sett. Every tartan is a check. Almost no check is a tartan.

Gingham

Even two-colour squares on white, woven from lightweight plain cotton with no brushed nap at all. A gingham shirt is a summer shirt. Whatever else it is, it is not a flannel.

Why the distinction changes what you buy

When you buy a shirt for outdoor use you are buying warmth, weight and how many winters it survives. All three of those live in the cloth. The pattern decides whether you enjoy looking at it, which matters, and which is a separate question.

So judge the cloth first. Four things worth checking before the colourway:

• 100% cotton, and brushed on both sides rather than one
• Enough weight to hang properly instead of clinging
• A regular fit with room to layer over a tee and under a gilet
• A hidden button-down collar, which holds the points still in wind and under an outer layer

The Brae is 100% cotton, brushed on both sides. Both Ghillie flannels are made in Turkey and cut to the same regular fit. If you want the longer version of how to judge one, we wrote the men's buying guide to choosing a flannel shirt. If you have already chosen and want to know how to wear it, read the check shirt styling guide.

Common questions

Is flannel a fabric or a pattern?

A fabric. Flannel is cotton that has been woven and then brushed to raise a soft nap, which traps air and makes the shirt warm. The check pattern most people picture is a separate thing that often appears on flannel and is not required by it.

Is plaid the same as check?

In everyday American usage, yes. In Britain the word for the pattern is check, and in Scotland a plaid is a length of cloth worn over the shoulder rather than a pattern at all.

Is every flannel shirt checked?

No. The Munro is a plain flannel with no pattern on it. Flannel shirts come checked, striped, and plain, because the word describes the finish of the cloth rather than what is printed or woven across it.

What is a flannel shirt made of?

The good ones are 100% cotton, brushed on both sides. Cheaper flannels blend in synthetics or brush only the inner face, which feels soft in the shop and goes flat after a season of washing.

Is flannel the same as tartan?

No. Tartan is a check woven to a specific repeating sett, usually a named one. Flannel is a brushed cloth. A shirt can be one, the other, both, or neither.

One cloth, two shirts

The flannels collection holds six colourways across the two shirts: the Brae if you want the check, the Munro if you want the cloth without it. There is 20% off two or more flannel shirts, applied at checkout.

Bought once. Worn often.