The Proper Blog

Dear Proper Cloth,
I am a second-year MBA candidate at [top business school] writing to request an interview for an Investment Banking Associate position with Proper Cloth.  I understand the Associate position will require strong analytical skills and the ability to work well in teams.  I am confident my background and personality will allow me to be a strong contributor in this role.

Strong analytical skills: As an analyst at Bear Stearns, I analyzed challenging quantitative problems, created complex models for various financial products and received numerous promotions

Teamwork:  At Countrywide Home Loans, over a two year period I led a team of 20 people with diverse cultural backgrounds, ages, and expertise, resulting in record setting sales of creative financing for underprivileged families.

I look forward to meeting with you during on campus interviews and learning more about Proper Cloth.  Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Banker Barry
Dear Barry,

We’re not sure if this letter is the result of your auto-complete cover letter generator going mad or just a sheer act of desperation.  Proper Cloth does not have any investment banking positions open at the moment, but we feel compelled to help you nonetheless.

The way we see it, you have two options.  Fly to the Caribbean and sit out the next eighteen months in style, or actually land a job.  In case the first is not feasible at the moment, let’s focus on the second.

In today’s financial job market everything counts, so it’s critical that you look right for your next interview.  We suggest a fine white broadcloth of at least 80 threads/inch to start.  Stay away from the French cuffs, as cuff-links will only remind your interviewer that you used to make four times what he/she is making now.  Finally, don’t settle for anything that’s not custom fit to your body.  We are pretty sure that no investment bank has ever turned down a candidate in a properly fitted shirt.  It’s a sure thing.

Best of luck,

Proper Cloth

Well, they say time flies when you’re having fun… so, this must be fun.  Can hardly believe it’s been a full month since the last blog post.  You, like my mother, may be wondering – what the heck are you doing with your life? (No, mom: I have not found a nice girl and “settled down”.  Sorry.  I will try harder.)

However, Proper Cloth has been making some great progress that we’re ready to share.

New Website Look

So – I’ve been working on the design for this website for almost a year now – and well – I guess I’ve learned a few things along the way.  So – if you check out http://propercloth.com, the first thing you’ll notice is that the site has a new (and we hope improved) look and feel to it.  It also should load a bit faster.  Please let us know what you think.

New Shirt Images

The simulated dress shirt images we had before were pretty cool.  However, even we could admit that they were kind of cartoony.  That might have been good enough, but we wanted to do better.  So, with our new shirt images you’ll see a new level of realism and a higher resolution zoom image.  We want to make designing your clothes online as easy as possible, leaving as little as possible to the imagination. With this update, we think we’re getting pretty close to that goal.

The Londoner Collar

We heard your requests for wider spread collars, so we’re really excited to now offer the Londoner collar as a standard option.  It’s wider than the English Spread Collar.  I’ve already made several shirts for myself with this collar and have to say – it is my favorite to wear without a tie.

Customer Reviews

We strive to be as authentic and transparent as possible – and we think unbiased customer reviews are critical to achieving that.  So, we built a customer review interface that we’re really excited about.  Basically, it allows customers to post feedback on their Proper Cloth shirts directly to our site.  Unfiltered and uncensored.  We’re excited to hear more from our customers and find ways to further improve our service.  We also think this information will be useful to other prospective customers looking for tailored dress shirts online.

Fixes, Repairs, Overhauls, Patches

In our defense, Proper Cloth was originally bootstrapped by a debt-laden MBA student – and as such, there were a few parts of the site that were let’s just say – less than perfect.  Luckily, we’ve been able to attract some additional investors, and finally address these issues.  There were little things that caused us headaches in the past.  For example, our gift certificate purchasing system was a serious cudgel.  I don’t even know what a “cudgel” is, but I feel like it is the right word.  Our shopping cart, back end analytics and order management systems also received a good upgrade.

So – What’s Next?

Well, we’re not stopping now.  We have lots of new features that will be coming out in the next few weeks/months that will make it easier for you to get exactly the custom dress shirt you are looking for.  We can’t say exactly what they are, but I promise you will like them.  What we can say is that we will be growing our fabric selection significantly in just the next few days – so be sure to check back for that.