Proving its resilience and classic trustworthiness, the white shirt is once again at the front of city boys' wardrobes in these credit crunching times. Gordon Gekko-style ostentatiousness, loud colours and eye-catching ties are out and a new sober seriousness in - and nothing says 'lets get down to business' like the rolled-up sleeves of a white shirt. "No one wants to look like a wide boy," an Ernst & Young consultant was recently quoted saying.

The oldest white shirt in history - dating back to 3000BC - was discovered in a First Dynasty Egyptian tomb at Tarken by archaeologist and general brainy bod Flinders Petrie. Apparently it was quite a fancy linen number with pleated sleeves and a fringed neck. God knows what state it was in. Hope they kept the receipt.

There are more blood-stained white shirts soaking up screen time in the 1992 Tarantino classic Reservoir Dogs than any other Hollywood movie. Sit down in front of the DVD with a stopwatch if you don't believe us. What would Quentin, Scorsese, Lumet et al have done with out a nice clean white shirt to suddenly, shockingly turn crimson, eh?

You must take care of your shirt like it were a newborn babe. White shirts should always be just that. White. Pristine white. Ideally white shirts should be dry cleaned for you to pick up freshly laundered, pressed and ready to go. But if you must wash in the machine never mix with grey socks and always use whitener, naturally. And collars should never be dog-eared or wilting. If a white shirt looks tired and washed out it's ready for the local Oxfam.

We've said it before, but it must be said again, there's no more iconic white shirt-wearer in the world today than US president Barack Obama. He rocks a pristine crisp white shirt like nobody else on the planet right now.

The whole social concept of 'white collar' - as in 'white collar jobs' and 'white collar crime' - was coined by Pulitzer Prize winner and lifelong socialist Upton Sinclair in America in the 1930s. It comes from the days when all management and administrative staff would wear white shirts while manual workers would wear blue and foremen brown. It kind of stuck.

You just can't go wrong with investing in some decent, high quality white shirts. For any occasion, it's the perfect neutral base garment that can be dressed up or down and worked to maximum effect in stark contrast to dark ties and jackets. (Only the most fashion forward and daring should consider wearing it with a white tie.) And it always looks cool on its own too.

Despite its associations with the corporate world, the white shirt is so versatile that it's just at home hanging down the trendiest east London rock dive as it is on the top floor of a multinational bank. Punk goddess Patti Smith iconised the white shirt as a statement of androgynous individualism on her classic Horses album sleeve - shot by American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe - in the 70s and to this day, worn with the right amount of youthful insolence, it's still the epitome of cool.

There's only one White Shirt Day in the world - and that's in Flint, Michigan USA every 11th February. Why? It commemorates the day in 1937 General Motors manual workers won their sit down strike. Now every year on that day workers all wear white shirts as a reminder of their equal rights with management.

The only song to ever pay exact titular homage to the enduring fashion classic is White Shirt on 90s indie darlings The Charlatans' debut album. "When my white shirt lets me down, like one we race against the wind." Apparently.