Short Shrifted

Common wisdom says all neckties are the same size. (And one size fits all.) But I compared 55 major tie brands and found that’s just not true. Over the last few months I’ve been tromping around NYC — cloth measuring tape in hand, pencil behind my ear, notebook rapidly filling up with figures, sales clerks eyeing me suspiciously — on a quest to compare men’s neckwear from Brooks Brothers to Old Navy, to see how Duncan Quinn stacks up against Thomas Pink, to quantify the difference between H&M and Ferragamo, Banana Republic and Armani.

The result of my painstaking research is Short Shrifted’s Necktie Guide. Click here to go to the Necktie Guide PDF download page.

I determined that neckties currently range from about 54 to 60 inches in length. That’s half a foot difference! It stands to reason that short men need shorter neckties and tall guys need extra-long neckties (although this may not always be the case). Ultimately, the correct tie length for you depends on many factors: your height, yes, but also your weight, neck size, what knots you use, your personal sense of style, and, well, just how high you like to hike your pants.

Whatever your requirements, you can find a tie that meets your needs in the PDF chart I’ve created.

Some conclusions:

• Neckties currently range from about 54-60 inches
• The average length of most brands is 57-59 inches
• Silk neckties tend to stretch out as they are worn; other materials hold their length and shape better
• Although certain tiemakers achieve a very consistent length, many labels vary significantly. Sometimes by several inches — within the same brand/style/color! If length is important to you, bring a tape measure, ask a salesperson for one, or hold up several ties next to each other to compare.

Off the Cuff is a DC-based men’s style blog written by Chris Hogan. My favorite posts by Chris can be found in his Style Guide section. In each, he tackles a particular topic — zip-front sweaters, suits, dressed-up jeans, classic vs. preppy, icons of classic style, canvas tote bags — and explores it at length. Mixing historical research, current trends, personal insight and loads of helpful info, each of these guides is a great starting place for your own exploration of the subject.

Recently, Off the Cuff added a new style guide on Fashion for the Shorter Gentlemen. It covers all the bases of how short men can dress professionally and look great. His main points are:

• Stripes — Choose stripes of a thinner variety like beaded or pinstripes. Choose stripes where the width between stripes best balances your frame. ¼” to ¾” should be sufficient. The wider your frame, the wider the stripe option, however, any wider than ¾” and you’ll begin to look squat.
• Suits — When trying on a suit, stand close to the mirror and take a good to see if it flatters you. Then, stand back about 5 to 10 feet from the mirror to get a visual sense of how others will see you in a typical day to day situation.
• Ties — For the short man, it’s best to go narrow. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s more proportioned for a shorter frame. A ties that is 2 ½” to 3 ¼” at its widest point should be enough.
• Shirts — Choose a more trim European inspired fit with higher armholes and a slimmer body. These trimmer cuts can easily be shortened to fit your body and arms.
• Pants — Some designers are showing pleated, full cut dress pants again. Avoid this look at all costs. Stick to more traditional cuts, preferably with a flat front and short rise. If you prefer a pleated pant because you have thick thighs or wide hips, stick to shallower pleats.
• Alterations — The number one rule, no matter what the current fashion trend, is to have your clothes altered by a good tailor. This rule applies to men of all heights, but is particularly important to us short guys.

Last but not least, he gave a nod to Short Shrifted, saying “It’s a great site that covers clothing, brands and style in general. The site has great content and a lot of useful resources for short men.”

Scott Schuman’s street-fashion photoblog The Sartorialist is endlessly clickable. But it’s not just his subjects that are snazzy dressers. He’s a style icon in his own right (and at five-foot-six, a short style icon). So it’s cool to see him at the other end of the lens: Schuman was profiled in the most recent issue of Fantastic Man (#7). Because it’s beautifully designed and imported and run by guys with fancy names like Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers, a copy of the magazine is more expensive than most books. Hardcover books. So I thought I’d give you a few of the highlights (below).

• In the picture shown here, Schuman describes his look: “This navy suit by Cesare Attolini is one of the few items of clothing that actually makes me feel sexy. Unfortunately, I had to pay dearly for that feeling! The just-slim-enough pants are perfect. They create a longer visual line. I really love a long visual line.”
• Elsewhere, he talks about growing up in Indiana. In school, he played football, baseball and basketball. “I played centre, protecting the quarterback. Typically, your biggest, meanest, strongest guy is the centre. I was always just about the smallest guy on the team, but I was the meanest, so I was never teased.”
• Brands Schuman is photographed in: Brooks Brothers, Cesare Attolini, Gianpaolo, Levi’s, Polo by Ralph Lauren.

Check out these links to a few of the full-page shots featured in the mag: photo 1, photo 2

Working on rough drafts of future posts tonight, I needed some background noise to keep me going. So I finally got around to checking out David Beach’s podcast “The Low Down.” I was impressed with his professional, funny, easy-going radio personality, and hope more people check out his show. I burned through a few episodes and as I was typing away on a series of jeans posts I’m working on, I heard this here blog mentioned. How very cool.

“The Low Down” got the, uh, down-low on Short Shrifted from Mikhail, a reader who’s already given me lots of great advice (thanks!). Anyway, Mikhail wrote in to the podcast to mention me and talk about the trouble short men have finding clothes. He said, “Stores are slowly making their sizes bigger and bigger, and every time we’re in a store and find something which fits us really well we need to let people know about it, to keep those sizes from disappearing.” Taking his own advice, he listed his favorite stores.

Mikhail’s top picks:

• Armani Exchange — jeans
• Banana Republic — size small fitted T-shirts
• Zara — sportcoats
• H&M — slim-fit button-down shirts

I can’t agree more with the H&M slim-fit dress shirts. Best off-the-rack fit I’ve encountered (and only $39). Get thee to H&M. And tune thyself in to “The Low Down” with David Beach.

This gent to the left is pretty darn tall, but check out that seriously truncated jacket he’s rocking. Looks like he raided a fifth-grader’s closet. A British fifth-grader attending an upper-crusty public school, that is. Any good Anglophile (or casual Wikipedia user) knows that at Eton College “from the 19th century until 1967, boys under the height of 5′4″ were required to wear the Eton suit, which replaced the tailcoat with the cropped Eton jacket (known colloquially as a “bum-freezer”).” Nice to imagine some wizened old headmaster looking after the sartorial challenges faced by the shrimpy kids falling asleep in his Latin class. Headmasters get a bad rap, I say.

In any case, I would have missed Eton’s cutoff by an inch, but my curiosity may be enough to motivate me to stop by Uniqlo in SoHo next month when this jacket debuts (May 16 supposedly).

The piece is part of the new mini-collection by Loden Dager, the latest invitee to Uniqlo’s Designer Invitation Projects. There’s a slideshow of the line on men.style, but most of the stuff looks horribly long and stretched out — more suited to the tall, skinny European-looking male model pictured. This American short-arse is most interested in the aforementioned “notch-lapel two-button blazer with shirting material lining the sleeves,” which will retail for $79.50, according to Men.Style. “Think circa ‘68,” Loden Dager’s Alexander Galan says of his inspiration. “Scooter rallies at Brighton Beach, mods lounging at Parisian sidewalk cafés, sipping Pernod in the summer heat.” Time to get the Vespa out of storage.

The gin in my freezer is so cold it’s almost syrupy. Glass and cocktail shaker are chilling in the fridge. And I made sure I still had some olives on hand for the martini I’ll be making after I hit “publish” on this post. This blog turned one year old last week — and I’m celebrating.

I feel good about what I’ve accomplished with Short Shrifted over the last year. I wrote 58 posts covering all sorts of topics: clothing stores and brands, custom tailoring, style advice, DIY alterations, fashion-industry news, sale alerts, interviews and helpful websites. A bunch of readers wrote to say that my advice was helpful and that felt good.

It’s been a technological and sartorial learning process for me. When I bought the domain name, I had absolutely no knowledge of blogging software, web design or html. But I’ve been able to tweak the design and add a few small bells and whistles. Best of all, I’ve followed some of my own research and advice and I feel like I’m slowly taking control of my wardrobe. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of clothes that never really fit right — and replaced them with things that really do fit properly.

Looking forward to the next year of Short Shrifted: some goals, a call to action, and then my martini.

What I want to accomplish:

• Write more posts. Sometimes it’s tough to work all day and come home and write a post, especially when Buffy repeats are on. But I aim to do it.
• Produce more original content. PDF style guides, how-to videos, interviews.
• Improve the site design The current default design doesn’t really reflect my aesthetic. I’m also thinking about creating a homepage with links to more stable content — PDFs, links, etc. — and having the blog incorporated into that somewhere.

What you can do:
I need your help. I want Short Shrifted readers to participate more in this blog — it keeps me going and it helps build a community. Please:

• Comment on posts. Agree? Disagree? Have something to add? Other readers want to hear what you have to say.
• Contact me. E-mail me with your questions, tips, suggestions, and feedback.
• Spread the word. Share this blog with your short friends.

Thanks to everyone who came to the site, read my advice, subscribed to the feed, commented or e-mailed me over the past year. I’m looking forward to Year Two of Short Shrifted!

Cheers,
Josh

A quick note this weekend to let you know that Hudson’s Guide to Men’s Clothing for Short & Small Guys was just updated this March (last updated in September 2007). Weighing in at a bantam-like 4,400 words, it still packs a considerable punch. Concise and to the point, this static page provides info on all the basics: figuring out your measurements and listing scads of stores and websites that carry small and extra-small sizes. There’s also a round-up of short specialty stores.

The Work Gear section seems particularly useful for anyone frustrated with oversized heavy-duty workwear. A sample:

Sears carries a line of rugged work clothing called “WorkWear,” which is available in-store and on their web site (www.searsworkwear.com). Their men’s plain front work pants run as small as 28×26, and they have a full range of small sizes in a variety of colors. They also carry long- and short-sleeved work shirts in small sizes in a variety of colors. The Sears WorkWear line is quite affordable, and varied in its styles and selection.

Check out the companion page, too: Men’s Shoes in Small Sizes.

Officially, the parent website, Hudson’s FTM Guide, “is intended to provide information on topics of interest to female-to-male, trans men, and their friends and loved ones.” But as the author points out, “Non-trans men have also found the pages on men’s grooming and clothing to be helpful. Transsexual, non-transsexual, intersex, transgender, genderqueer, questioning, and “just plain folks” are all welcome.” So whatever your category, if you self-identify as “short,” Hudson’s Men’s Clothing page is an essential reference.

I’ve long been a fan of the blog A Suitable Wardrobe, a meditation on timeless men’s fashion written by Will in San Francisco. He’s a wealth of information on classic approaches to menswear. And he presents it all in an unfussy and inspired way — just like a true sartorialist. Recently, he fielded this query about odd jackets from a short reader:

Both Anton and Flusser write that odd jackets and trousers cut short guys in half. I am 5′ 7″ and assume that in addition to the contrast in materials and colors, the busy details and patterns of odd jackets would harm my look. Does this mean I should never wear odd jackets?

So, what is an “odd jacket?” some of you might be wondering. I’ve had plenty of odd jackets and I regretted them all. Well, think sock without a mate (as opposed to something “strange”). Basically, the odd jacket is a sports jacket that doesn’t have matching trousers. Great article on its evolution in Flusser’s book.

The good news, according to Will, is that short gents can still don the odd jacket or two. He cites a photo of David Niven, the old-school British actor, and notes:

He’s able to wear that odd jacket successfully because there’s not as much contrast between jacket and trousers as the writers you mention usually recommend. Niven of course was fairly thin. You should also consider casual suits instead of odd jackets to help accentuate the vertical. For example, a cotton poplin or a seersucker suit can can go to the same functions as a blazer and the vertical lines of the seersucker in particular will give you a taller look.

So whether your look is urban (designer jeans and silk sportscoat) or pastoral (All Creatures Great & Small-style tweeds), dial down the contrast.

Being short and living in New Jersey is something of a double whammy for Joseph Ax, a reporter for The Record (NJ’s largest daily). Like so many areas across the country, there just aren’t many clothing options among the chain and big-box stores for men who are shorter than average. In the story he ponders “Who’s Looking Out for North Jersey’s Little Guys?” and bemoans the lack of selection in suburbia:

A recent visit to the Garden State Plaza in Paramus illustrates the predicament. Ideally, I wear 30- or 31-inch pants with a 28-inseam; my dress shirt size is a 14-inch neck and a 31-inch sleeve. Yet visits to the clothing racks of The Gap, American Eagle and J.C. Penney yielded only frustration. As usual, pants and shirts were too long.

The main clothing solution proposed in the article is online shopping. Some stores may carry your size on their website even if they don’t stock it in their stores, so you should always check. Here are a couple of The Record’s online picks:

• American Eagle: XS shirts and pants with 28-inch inseams, in stores and online – but 28-inch inseams come only with 26- or 28-inch waists.
• Gap: XS and, in rare cases, XXS shirts and pants with 28-inch inseams, all online only. The 28-inch inseams come in a number of styles and waist sizes.
• Lands’ End, J.C. Penney: Custom-made shirts and pants, from a 14-inch neck and 29-inch sleeve for shirts and a 25-inch inseam for pants, all online; a short-rise option for pants online.