Short Shrifted

Last week in Part 1, I gave you some background info on A Tailored Suit, an online-only custom-clothing service. Today, I wanted to tell you more about the actual MTM dress shirt they made for me: the advice they gave me, my stylistic choices, the final fit, and photos…

For my shirt, I dealt with Antonio, president of A Tailored Suit, and a former U.S. Marine who’s spent time in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Ukraine.

Here’s what he said in our initial phone consultation:

We take the time to actually learn about our clients and help them design clothing that compliments their unique features. From your blog, I can see that you have dark hair, light skin, and are 5’5”/125 lbs.

From this basic info, he recommended the following:

SOLID OR THIN-STRIPED PATTERNS

The website directed me to their swatch page, which has thumbnails of their fabrics (you can navigate by price, color, or pattern). I highly recommend expanding each image that you think you might be interested in, since the full-size images are much more detailed and vivid (and at least in the case of the fabric I selected, a more true-to-life representation). They have fabrics starting at $99, but I ended up picking a twill, black-and-red stripe on a white background in the $149 range [that was gratis for review purposes]. It’s a lightweight fabric (3.5 oz per square yard); 2-ply 100-percent cotton (if that means anything to you).

NO POCKET

No argument there. Not only do shirt pockets have a tendency to sit too low or loom too large on the chests of short men, they just aren’t very dressy. When you’re spending a decent chunk of change on a custom shirt, you should be going for a classy, elegant look. Lose the pocket.

REGULAR FIT OR FORM FIT

I went for the regular fit, but in hindsight I should have gone for a more slim, form-fitting look. I hate blousing on all men, but it probably looks the worst on slim guys like me. The final product is what I ordered: a “regular fit” and the blousing is not too egregious. But I still wish I had gone with their “form fit”. Actually, here’s a great example of communication being key. I should have told Antonio that one of my main dislikes was blousing over the belt, and let him know that this was often a problem for me with off-the-rack shirts. Lesson learned.

ONE-BUTTON CUFF

“Your cuff should be one button — that’s not overpowering,” Antonio told me. For some reason, I went with a two-button cut-corner cuff. Not sure why. If I had to do it again, I’d follow Antonio’s advice.

POINT COLLAR

Yes, I know the theory is that point collars add a bit of vertical lift for shorter men, but I just don’t like them. I wanted a nice spread collar. I’ve been obsessing about them after looking at so many photos of dapper-looking European men on The Sartorialist. I confessed this to Antonio and he said I’d be fine with a medium spread. So I went with that and was very pleased.

SEND MEASUREMENTS OF A FAVORITE SHIRT

Antonio also let me know that “if you decide to send me a few measurements from one of your favorite shirts, I can incorporate that into the build. This is a standard offer I make to all first-time clients (for suits, I also collect photos).” I decided not to do this because, for the purposes of this review, I wanted to see how well the shirt fit just by following the steps on their website…

So. My wife took all my measurements. I had fun deciding on all the little customizable details (panel front, yes; monogram, no). And I entered all the info into their online order form. In the Notes section, I emphasized that the most important detail to me was sleeve length. As a short guy, I ALWAYS have trouble with overlong sleeves with my off-the-rack shirts. If I’m going to invest in a custom shirt, sleeve length HAS to be perfect.

After ordering, I got this e-mail from Antonio:

Received and reviewed your order. As you have a very good idea as to how you want your shirt to fit, please review the attached PDF doc that lays out your shirt’s planned measurements. The measurement I’m most concerned with is your sleeve length; I know you already have a shirt or two where this is perfect, so feel free to lay them out, measure, and correct us if you feel we are outside where you want them. Currently we plan on building your sleeves 23 inches in length with shoulders measuring 17.5 inches. Our definition of a perfect sleeve length is one that allows you to fully rotate the arms without the cuff pulling from the wrist (also, I am giving you 1.5 inches of room in the wrists). The style is handled separately (so the attached picture is in regards to measurement only) and everything looks good there. The two-button cuff will be made approximately 15% shorter than our average cuff length to make it look more proportional. FYI, I routinely do this with first time customer who are very specific about their wants.

It all looked good to me. But in the intervening days, I had one last-minute flight of fancy, so I e-mailed Antonio: “Just one question for you. I need your stylistic advice. I originally picked a center box pleat for the back of the shirt. But I saw side pleats on a fairly small guy near Rockefeller Center this weekend, and I really liked the look of them. I’d kind of like to try them out because I’ve never had side pleats before, but I just don’t know… With my narrowish shoulders and relatively slight build, which style would you recommend? I’d like to do whichever you think would create the illusion of bigger/stronger shoulders.”

Personally, I think that unless you are a large or very muscular man back pleats on a custom shirt in general are superfluous. I would go with no pleats – this to me signals that the shirt was not made to fit 100 different men (like normal off-the-rack fare). Plus it will fit closer and give you are more defined look (but we’re talking a small difference here between this and the side…..so go with your wants on this).

I had never given back pleats much thought before. And had no idea that they are often a feature of off-the-rack shirts. I was relieved that Antonio talked me down from that particular stylistic ledge. I went with his advice and decided against the side pleats. I also took the opportunity to strike the center pleat from my original order.

JUDGMENT DAY: THE SHIRT ARRIVES

A few weeks after placing my order, I received a small package in the mail. My first custom shirt. With trembling fingers I tore it open. Would it fit? Had I finally found the solution to the Short Guy Dress Shirt Blues?

Overall I’m very pleased! (with a few minor reservations). The fabric quality and overall construction (stitching, buttonholes, etc.) are beautiful. Shoulder seams are dead on. As I said before, I wish I had opted for a “form fit” because the torso is a little looser than I would have preferred. Still, as you can see from the photo, it’s really not as blousy as many off-the-rack shirts can be. Bottom hem/tail falls perfectly for a dress shirt that I planned to always tuck in to my pants. My primary goal was to have sleeves that hit my wrists perfectly, and I was 100% satisfied in that regard (in Part 1, I told you how my coworker commented on the shirt’s sleeve length, totally unbidden). Collar was a bit loose, I thought. Better that than too tight. And sadly, I’m sure I’ll grow into it at some point. It’s not ill-fitting, but I just thought it could have been a bit more snug.

My only real complaint is the cuff length (not sleeve length; that was spot on). Antonio said that he’d make them 15% shorter than their standard cuff. No doubt he did so (they’re 2.75 inches FYI), but I feel like they’re just a tad too long for my arm, proportionally. He also told me he’d be giving me 1.5 inches of room in the wrists. Even though he clearly stated this, I didn’t realize that this would be too much for my taste. That, at least, is easy/cheap enough to fix (just have my local tailor move the buttons — or I could even do that myself). The cuff length is a little tougher. But now that I know that cuff length is something that I have very specific ides about, I’ll communicate my length requirements clearly for my next custom shirt order.

The big lesson I learned about the whole custom-clothing process is: Communication with your shirtmaker is essential. Tell them all your needs/wants/worries/problem areas/desires. And listen to what they’re telling you.

One final thought. Antonio offered me the option of incorporating some measurements from a favorite shirt of mine or even doing a wholesale copy. He read my earlier post about American Apparel’s Oxford shirt, and said “If you like that fit, we can do copies, we can do improvements on copies. This American Apparel shirt, maybe the color is boring, maybe you’d like to try something else [with the collar, cuffs, etc.].” Well, for this go-round, I wanted to try a custom shirt made completely from scratch. But I’m intrigued by Antonio’s suggestion about doing a copy (and even improving some aspects in a copy). If you have a perfect-fitting shirt in your wardrobe, this is probably a great idea — why mess with perfection? I’ll probably try that route next time and see how it goes.

What do you think? Check out my Flickr photo set and let me know. Just forgive my pale skin (long winter) and haggard face (new baby=sleepless nights).

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Custom/Alteration, Shirts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.