Short Shrifted

I’d never really ventured into an American Eagle dressing room before — nothing there has ever really caught my eye — but a Salvation Army find a few weeks ago made me reconsider the brand. I found a used AE extra-small button-down and it fit great. So I went back in to their Union Square shop and had a much more thorough look around; tried on a bunch of stuff. This is what I found:

Overall, American Eagle is not a great store for short men (with a few notable exceptions I’ll mention later). The real problem is the brand aesthetic, which is young, casual, and baggy. Nothing wrong with any of those things but they all tend to make men under 5-foot-8 look shorter than they are. Shorts go well past the knee (12-inch inseams), hoodies are baggy, and even though their short-sleeve rugby shirts looked like they’d be great, they turned out to be way too long. Better for tall, skinny types.

Here are the positives:

They stock size XS in store: This fact alone is reason for praise because it’s all too rare a thing. Unfortunately, just because something’s marked “extra small” doesn’t always mean it’ll fit — as I discovered with the polos.

Vintage Fit long-sleeve shirts: Decent. According to their website’s size guide, their XS fits a 35-36 chest/13.5-14.25 neck/31-32 arm. But even if your neck isn’t quite that skinny, it shouldn’t matter: these are casual shirts and you’d look like a doofus if you buttoned the top button anyway. The breast pocket sit pretty high, which is great for short guys. On the downside, the sleeves and bottom hem could be a bit too long, depending on your arm/torso length (although that’s true of most button-downs). Since my thrift-store shirt seemed slightly shorter, I wondered if maybe they shrink, but according to a salesgirl, all their clothes are pre-shrunk. Anyone have a different experience?

Jeans in 28-inch inseam: Yes, they actually carry 28-inch inseams in-store (even Levis doesn’t do that). You’ll have to be a 26- or 28-inch waist to take advantage of that length, though. 30-inch inseams are the shortest they make for any waist size above that. Most pairs are $39.50, but a few styles run 10 or 20 bucks more.

A few weeks back, I got excited about a cool-looking jacket in the upcoming Loden Dager collection for Uniqlo. I can’t be certain without trying one on, but judging from the web pix, it looks pretty darn short (even if the model is beanpole tall). So if you’re as curious about Loden’s bumfreezer as I am, cool. But please don’t freeze your ass off out there on the unseasonably cold SoHo sidewalk waiting for Uniqlo’s doors to open tomorrow morning. Originally slated to debut May 16, it’s been pushed back to May 30, according to Racked. So hold tight. If you feel the urge to blow part of your paycheck on something tomorrow, check out Steven Alan instead.

Steven Alan’s annual spring sample sale in Tribeca got underway today and continues through Sunday, May 18. Refinery 29 says, “Guys, be sure to pick up a bunch of Steven Alan’s own signature cotton button-downs (were $168, now $65).” If it’s anything like the fall sample sale I braved back in November, there will be plenty of long-sleeve buttondowns to choose from. Some of my impressions from that sale:

The short men swarming the aisles seemed mostly drawn to the shirts, no doubt because of those super-short hemlines (and the sizing: down to XXS). One important thing: I tried on three long-sleeve XXS shirts and they all fit differently. The biggest difference was in the sleeve lengths, which, unfortunately, were all a bit longer than I’d like. Hemlines were all nice and high, though, but they did vary. One of the salesgirls confirmed that there is a good deal of variation. So my advice is try on a bunch in your size.

Overall, it was worth it. I was able to find an XXS with short enough sleeves. Not to mention that beautifully high hem, cuffs that are two inches (about a 1/2 or even a full inch shorter than average), and smallish collars — it’s all about proportion.

Sale details from R29:

Friday, May 16 from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, May 17, from noon to 7 pm, Sunday, May 18, from noon to 5 p.m. Cash/credit cards. Steven Alan Showroom, 87 Franklin St. (between Church & Broadway), 212-219-3305.

Good hunting.

If you’re visiting this site from Candice Choi’s excellent AP feature story Size no longer stops short, stylish men, welcome.

I’m 5-foot-5, and have always had a tough time finding clothes that fit. After countless searches online for advice, I came to the conclusion that ye olde internette contained information on just about everything — except sharp threads for short dudes. I figured there were other people out there like me. So I started this blog. My goal is to connect you to the clothes, styles, stores, tailors, links and advice that best fit you.

You can check out previous entries in the Archives or Categories in the sidebar, but here’s a few of the most popular posts to get you started:

• My best short shopping experience of 2007
• Compare 55 brands of neckties by length and price with this PDF
• DIY: How to slim down a dress shirt
• Celebrity style: Jason Schwartzman
• How Thomas Pink makes a custom shirt

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Thanks for stopping by — and please visit again soon.

There’s a longstanding prohibition against short men cuffing their trousers. The idea being that you thereby interrupt the “lengthening” vertical line of your pants by a precious inch or two. Not bad advice, really. But would a similar problem arise for short men who wanted to cuff a pair of shorts? Last week, The Sartorialist snapped a photo of a natty beach bum in the South of France and mused:

I have been seeing cuffed shorts slowly popping up on cool guys around the world. I hate when my shorts flair out at the bottom and cuffing them is a good trick but it is one of those funny things about menswear – either you’re a shorts cuffer or you’re not.

I can’t tell whether the man pictured is short but it doesn’t really matter. I think cuffed shorts for shorter guys could really work. The main problem with shorts and the short is that they (surprisingly, given the name) don’t often go together very well these days. The current style favors long and/or baggy shorts. Nothing against that look, but it often ends up looking way too long on guys like us. Besides visually dragging us down, they can also make us look more kid-like sometimes, I think.

Cuffing a pair of shorts not only adds a subtle debonair flair to your casual summer wardrobe, but you fix the whole my-shorts-are-too-long issue while you’re at it. I think the Sartorialist is right, though. It’s a tricky business. You run the risk of looking like a dork is you do it wrong — or cuff the wrong pair of shorts.

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Speaking of shorter shorts, I spotted some likely contenders recently at H&M (6″) and French Connection (both of which also had a bunch of the too-long variety). Anyone know of any shorter shorts out there?