It’s not just high style that has custom-shirt makers doing a booming business in this lousy economy. When business casual temporarily banished the blue business suit, the dress shirt remained an essential wardrobe piece and even gained importance with more exposure. Now more financial types are returning to tailors, responding to the reversal of dress-down office policies. Simon Hobbs, manager of Turnbull & Asser’s New York store, points to what might be called the Pink Effect. When Thomas Pink began its expansion in the 1990s, it introduced a younger customer to the importance of a good shirt.
The options available are vast. Browse the collar choices: there’s the Dore, the Continental, the Point, the Pointed Eyelet. Pick your color (lilac seems to be quite popular this year). Choose your favorite fabric thickness and texture–heavier cotton flannel for casual wear, finer Sea Island cotton for formalwear. A skilled tailor can even enhance your features: slimmer collars can elongate the face, while wider ones will make it seem rounder. Shirts can also hide those different arm lengths (the writing hand’s arm is often longer) and other idiosyncratic features like rounded backs or sloping shoulders. Peter Simmons, a London analyst, gets monogrammed cuffs and an extra-long tail to fit his tall frame. More unusually, a traveling businessman recently had Turnbull & Asser sew a special pocket, large enough to hold bills, onto the bottom of a shirt so that it could be tucked into his trousers. And for an arthritic customer, Turnbull & Asser made Velcro closings with false buttons.
There are other advantages. For one thing, you don’t get “the billows.” Ever notice how when the wind blows, you’re likely to go sailing down the street with your shirt puffing out like a spinnaker? Off-the-rack shirts tend to be cut boxy, with extra room to accommodate all girth sizes.
Of course, such luxury doesn’t come cheap. Prices on London’s Jermyn Street start at [Pound sterling]130 to [Pound sterling]140. To save money, Simmons makes a point of buying his shirts while on business trips in Hong Kong or Dubai. Good tailors there work out of the hotel complexes, and the prices are one third of London’s. Hong Kong businessmen have started crossing the border into Shenzhen, where there’s a booming trade in even cheaper bespoke clothing. Shirt prices there start at just $5, but the reviews have been mixed, skewing to the side of disaster. In general, though, it’s hard to go wrong with made-to-measure shirts. Suit styles may come and go, but that oxford with the secret pocket will stay in style for as long as you can hold in that waistline.
