I have a nice old Brooks due from the USA sometime around Halloween (a sheer co-incidence).  Thanks to a tip-off by our very own Woofboxer, I have my eye on/have been salivating over some additional, sweet Brooks offerings.
I was amusing myself earlier, as I often do, by trawling through old threads.  One about 'Gidget' (a movie and TV series I've never seen, but I do have a 10x8 somewhere in the house of Sandra Dee) led into a discussion about collars.  Lots of blanks to fill in but Yuca went head to head (I'm thinking) with an American poster about the flat collars to be seen on American chaps in that era.  The Towncraft I'm wearing now (£3-ish, made in Korea, badly) would probably horrify many.  It has The Look (as JFM would have put it) but absolutely nothing else.  Poly/cotton as stated in the aforementioned thread. 
But the Gant cotton poplin, which I wore yesterday, crackles like paper.  Been through the washing-machine, too.  Awful, pointless collar.  What gives? 
Candidly, I'm wearing this stuff around the house because I have a very old, lame, clingy cat with sharp claws.  In the habit of pulling threads.  As they do. 

Now - the killer question:  Does anyone live well away from London or a big city and manage to buy what they want on a regular basis? 

Never found anything worth having in the local TKMaxx. 

The so-called 'authentic Bleeding Madras' RL remains quite a pleasing shirt in its own right.  But the crap I had to go through in order to find it!