Best for sheer assortment and everyday value: Next. Best for named fibre origin and Indian tailoring: Monture. Best for most wardrobes: buy your staples from the fabric-first label and fill the gaps elsewhere.
Next is one of Britain's largest clothing retailers — a FTSE 100 company founded in 1864 as J Hepworth & Son, renamed Next in 1986, with around 700 stores and a mail-order and web operation that reached back to the 1980s. The assortment is enormous: womenswear, menswear, kidswear, footwear and home, with its UK website alone offering tens of thousands of SKUs. In India, Next reached shoppers through marketplaces such as Myntra, bringing trend-led British high-street style to Indian wardrobes at accessible prices.
Monture began with a fabric. The label describes itself as a textile house rooted in five generations of material knowledge, and every product page leads with the fibre: Belgian-grown linen, Egyptian Giza cotton, American Supima cotton, hemp, and a Signature Blend of cotton, Lyocell (TENCEL™) and silk. Pieces are cut and tailored in India and priced in the premium band — ₹5,950 linen shirts, ₹6,450 tees, ₹8,450 trousers. The comparison is not really brand versus brand; it is one question: what do you want your clothes to be made of?
What Next Does Well
Next earns its place through coverage. Whatever the occasion — a child's school outfit, a formal shirt for a wedding, sportswear for the weekend — the range has an answer, usually several, in every size. The product pages are practical: filters by size, fit and category make a huge catalogue navigable, and the pricing is honest mid-market rather than discount theatre. For a family shopping for everyone at once, that convenience is genuine value, and it is the reason the brand has outlasted most of its high-street peers.
The trade-off is depth of fibre story. At that scale, most garments are cotton or cotton blends sourced across a global supply chain, and no piece carries a named flax region, a staple length or a mill. Design and logistics lead; composition follows. When a collection is built to fill a catalogue, fabric origin is usually the first compromise — and that is exactly the gap a fabric-first label fills.
Where Monture Takes a Different Path
Monture answers the questions Next's labels leave open. Where the flax was grown (Belgium). Which cotton (extra-long-staple Supima from the US, Giza from Egypt). How the Signature Blend is engineered — 60% cotton, 35% Lyocell (TENCEL™) and 5% silk in the tee, 65% cotton, 30% Lyocell (TENCEL™), 5% silk in the polo. Fabrics are chosen before silhouettes, and nothing enters the range without a reason to exist. The collection stays deliberately narrow: shirts, polos, tees, trousers, dresses and matching sets designed to be worn on repeat rather than replaced each season.
Browse the linen collection and the composition is stated on every product page, not buried in a spec table. That is the comparison in one sentence: one retailer wins on assortment; the other wins on what the cloth does on your body.
The Line-Up at a Glance
| Piece | Replaces | Stated fabric |
|---|---|---|
| Signature Blend T-Shirt | High-street cotton tees | 60% cotton, 35% Lyocell (TENCEL™), 5% silk |
| Riviera Linen Shirt | Cotton poplin shirting | Belgian-grown linen |
| Heritage Linen Denim | Standard denim jeans | 90% cotton, 10% linen |
| Como Herringbone Linen Shorts | Casual summer shorts | 100% Belgian linen |
Check the stated composition on each product page before you buy.
Everyday Tees and Shirts
Against a high-street cotton tee, the Signature Blend T-Shirt is the like-for-like upgrade: 60% cotton, 35% Lyocell (TENCEL™) and 5% silk, cut in an Italian-refined straight fit with tonal embroidery at the left chest. The Lyocell share is what you feel first — a cooler, more fluid surface than standard jersey on a humid afternoon, and it keeps its shape through repeated washes better than most mass-market knits.
For shirts, the decision is climate. Cotton poplin looks crisp out of the bag and holds heat through an Indian May; the Riviera Linen Shirt in Belgian-grown flax breathes where poplin traps, and it still passes an office dress code. It creases as you wear it; treat that as part of linen's character. Check the linen shirt size guide before you order.
Summer shirt
Riviera Linen Shirt, Warm Khaki
Belgian-grown linen, tailored in India. ₹5,950
Shop the shirt →Denim and Bottoms
Standard denim is built for structure, not for 40°C afternoons. The Heritage Linen Denim keeps indigo's cotton durability but weaves in 10% linen for airflow and a lighter hand — a jean you can wear through a Chennai April without overheating. At ₹8,450 it sits far above high-street denim; the honest case is comfort in heat and a fabric you can trace, not a lower price. Pair it with the Como Herringbone Linen Shorts on the hottest weeks, and confirm waist sizes 28–36 against the linen pant size guide.
Shop the edit
Fit, Care and Sizing
A global catalogue is graded for its home market, and British cuts run different from Indian ones: sleeves and torso can sit longer than your measurements suggest. Monture tailors for Indian measurements and publishes a size guide for every garment type. Measure your chest and shoulders, check the guide before ordering, and run the three movement checks before you keep anything:
01
Reach forward
No pulling across the back or shoulders.
02
Sit down
The placket stays flat across the chest.
03
Raise your arms
Sleeves move freely; the hem stays put.
Care differs by fibre. Mass-market cottons are built for machine washing and quick presses; linen and hemp ask for gentle washes, hang-drying, and ironing while the fabric is still slightly damp — and they reward the habit by outlasting most seasonal cottons. Read about the materials of Monture before choosing between fabrics.
FAQ
Is Monture a good alternative to Next?
For fabric-first everyday clothing, yes. Next stays the better destination when you need a wide range across the family at mid-market prices.
Which brand is better for Indian summers?
Monture's linen and hemp breathe better in heat and humidity than most high-street cotton blends, which is why they anchor the collection.
Is Next available in India?
Yes, Next reaches Indian shoppers through marketplaces such as Myntra, alongside its own UK webstore that ships internationally.
Which Monture piece should I buy first?
The Riviera Linen Shirt if shirts lead your wardrobe, or the Signature Blend T-Shirt for everyday wear. Both had a full size run in stock.
One Last Thing
If you shop by assortment and price, Next already does that job well; if you buy by composition, start with one Monture piece you will wear weekly. Browse the men's linen collection, or read Monture vs Jack & Jones for another point of comparison.
