The Proper Blog

From the letter box:

Dear Proper Cloth,

I’ve always bought my dress shirts from Brooks Brothers, size 16-34 Slim Fit.  I believe this means my collar size is 16 and my sleeve size is 34.  I’m now thinking of switching to custom tailored dress shirts, so I went to a tailor to be measured.  According to the tailor, my sleeve length should actually be 35.5.  What gives?

Did he mess up and exaggerate the sleeve length or is this just different in some way?

Thanks,

Long Armed in Los Angeles

Dear Long Armed,

Don’t be alarmed.  The proper way to measure your sleeve length is from the center of the back of the neck, over your shoulder and down to the center of the back of your hand.  It’s common for this sleeve length measurement to be longer than you’re used to.   Truth is, you’ve probably been wearing the wrong sleeve length your entire adult life.

Try this – next time you prop your elbows up on the mahogany conference table while contemplatively rubbing your chin and mentally preparing your response to the analyst questioning the ‘employee morale’ expenses you incurred in Greece last quarter, take a moment and note how far up your forearms the cuffs of your shirt have moved.  If you’re not wearing a custom dress shirt this will probably look mildly ridiculous.

You were probably convinced that your shirts fit fine because when your arms are hanging relaxed at your sides, the cuffs come just to your wrist.  It would seem that if you add another inch, they will be too long.  After all, you don’t want your sleeve coming over your hand.

You’re absolutely right that you don’t want the sleeve coming up over your hand.  With custom fitting shirts this doesn’t have to be the case because can specify the correct cuff size.  Most off-the-rack shirts have over-sized cuffs, made to be loose on even the largest wrists.  However, a proper fitting cuff will have a circumference of just 2-2.5 inches more than your wrist’s measurement (to the skin).  A properly fitting cuff will not slide up your hand when your arms are at your sides.  It will hold the cuff in just the right spot at the base of your hand.

Long story short, custom shirt sleeves are usually made a bit longer because they should be.  And with custom, they can be.

Stay Proper.

Fancy yourself a pretty cool bloke?  Consider yourself on the bleeding edge of fashion?  Think you have the confidence to pull off the truly original?  Then, maybe you’ve considered wearing your watch on the outside of your cuff?

Ridiculous right?  Well, apparently some people think it’s cool.  According to fashion guru the Sartorialist, this is

“…still extremely pervasive on Italian Sartorialists…”

Really?  Who are these Italians?  We want to meet them.

A bit closer to home, the Natty Banker says”

“It’s more a specialized, advanced, and interesting thing to do. But certainly not dominant or necessary! Also the occasion matters. I think it’s best saved for going out to dinner or having cocktails, as opposed to when attending a graduation, for instance, or just going to work.”

Ok, we want to meet that guy too.

In the photo above is Gianni Agnelli, the inspiration for any man that wears his watch on the outside of his cuff.  You may ask: who is this Gianni clown?  Well, he’s passed away now, but in his time he was a super successful Italian business man.  As the head of Fiat,  he controlled 4.4% of Italy’s GNP.  He’s also known for having impeccable style, a beautiful wife and for “allegedly” sleeping with Jacqueline Kennedy.  Basically what we now refer to as a Master of the Universe.

In this case, we suggest you think twice before copying trends from the uber successful.  There’s a lot we can learn from them, but there are also certain things they can get away with that us mere mortals cannot.  For example, while we strongly advocate dressing more like Brad Pitt, we also suggest you think twice before copying his new moustache.

So, in conclusion, no matter how gutsy and fashionable you are, we suggest you take Daphne Galizia’s advice:

“Watch – strictly to be worn BENEATH your shirt-cuff; when you wish to know the time, push up your cuff; this can also be used as a signal that a meeting is over and you wish the annoying person sitting across from you to be on his way.”

Stay Proper.

We’re not sure if Brad Pitt deserves the credit for how well he dresses, but (at least on screen) the guy can make an outfit work.  One of our favorites is Mr. and Mrs. Smith – where he demonstrates how to really wear the men’s dress shirt with style.  Here we’re going to examine what it is exactly that makes the outfit work – and how you too can get the right look.

Stick to Simple Colors

The first thing to notice is the color of the shirt.  It is white.  For most of the film it is just simple, plain old, boring white.  There are a few scenes where he’s got some thin black stripes on the shirt, but for the most part the color and pattern is extremely simple. This is so important and often overlooked.  So many guys will look through hundreds of fabric patterns and not see anything they like – as if some strange combination of pink and blue stripes is going to make them much more attractive.  Truth is, for most guys, the more simple the color and pattern of the shirt the better you’ll look.  Classic plain white pinpoint will never fail you.  Ever.

But you say – “White is so boring – how will I stand out?”

Get the Perfect Fit

What’s really critical to looking good in a dress shirt is getting the right fit. In the top picture, you can see that with a tie on the collar fits perfectly around his neck – not squeezing at all, but not too loose either.  This looks comfortable and effortless.

In the second picture you can really see how well the shirt fits in the arms and shoulders. The yoke of the shirt goes right to the edge of his shoulder but not past it at all.  Most off the rack shirts you buy will have a yoke that is too wide – and it will come over the edge of your shoulder.  The width of the sleeves is also important. Here you can see that it doesn’t cinch around his arm, but doesn’t have a lot of extra fabric either.  The length of the sleeves is also perfect.  Even with his arms extended in front of him the sleeves come just to the base of his hand.

Insist on High Quality of Construction

The key to a nice dress shirt is the quality of the construction.  Probably the most visible way of telling a shirts quality is looking at the collar.  A high quality shirt collar will be smooth, fairly sturdy and have a round curve around the neck.  Cheap, mass-produced shirts usually don’t get this right because it needs to be done by hand and takes some time.  Look at the collars in the two pictures above.  The curve of the collar flows smoothly and the points are crisp.  You don’t see an imprint of the collar stays, and the tips don’t flair out at all.

Proper Cloth offers high quality dress shirts with a perfect fit.  We offer the most advanced online system to purchase shirts and all shirts are made in the US from Italian textiles.  See what our customers are saying here and get Brad’s style next time you buy one.

This is a guest post from Amy Salinger, a big time “image consultant” in NYC – more about her at the end.

As a fashion stylist people love to ask me the tough questions. For men, mixing patterns is apparently the toughest task of all! Stop fretting, getting dressed should be the least complicated part of your day and I am here to be your superhero stylist of fashion.

Here are a three basic rules to keep your anxiety levels low and your style quotient high:

Rule One: Stay Safe by Mixing Subtle with Subtle

Mixing patterns should be complimentary, and the safest way to make this happen is to combine subtle patterns.  Don’t be that guy with the crazy tie and the checkered shirt. Simply put, subtle patterns with subtle patterns will always be a winner. Think thin pinstripes with thin pinstripes or solids with solids.

This is one of the easiest pattern mixing looks to achieve. The main goal is to keep the patterns as simple and subtle as possible. This mixture of tie and shirt works because of the thin pinstripe against thin pinstripe. Nothing overpowers the other. Having all of the colors be underneath the blue umbrella creates a no-brainer approach to styling. Contrasting the blues is what makes this simple combination pop.

Rule Two: Be Bold with One Standout Piece

Your tie can scream personality while your shirt and suit are the simple backdrop.  Have everyone talking about your tie by picking a bold and fun color just like this red striped one.  You can work in another pattern as long as it is simple. This shirt may appear to be busy, but that is because this is an extreme close up. At a glance the black and white checkered pattern will seem more gray against the red color of the tie. Have lots of fun with your ties, just be sure to keep the backdrop just that, a backdrop.

Rule 3. Take Care When Combining Bold with Bold

Here is an example of how “Bold with Bold” can work. Remember that practice makes perfect and that this should be reserved for the stylishly capable! This works because not only are the colors playing off of each other, but the bold stripe with stripe combination is extremely complimentary. The tie has enough of a contrast to the shirt that it stands out as a focal point of the ensemble.

Amy Salinger has worked or appeared on Oprah, What not to Wear and The Today Show. She has been quoted in such publications as People, InStyle and The Wall Street Journal among others. Check out www.SASSNSTYLE.com for your daily does of style from the sassiest stylist of all!

UPDATED -> New Chart is posted here: http://propercloth.com/slim-fit-dress-shirts

Maybe you’re tall and skinny.  Maybe you’ve got a thick neck and a narrow waist.  Maybe you spend a lot of time in the gym and your shoulders and chest are massive.  Whatever the case, you can never find dress shirts that fit right.  Even most “slim fit” shirts don’t fit.  You’re in great physical shape, yet you’re punished every time you go shopping.  You’ve nearly given up finding a shirt that fits right.  It will either be too short in the sleeves, too loose in the waist, or too tight in the neck… which compromise are we going to make this time?

Well, we’ve done some research on the topic here and thought we’d share what we found.  Behold, our ranking of the most “Slim Fitting” dress shirts you can purchase off the rack.  Our metric for “slim fittingness” is Midsection Width/Collar Circumference, so that the slimmer fitting shirts are on the top.  We also looked at Midsection Width/Chest Width which measures the degree of taper the shirt has.  To simplify things, we only rank shirts sized Large, or 16-16.5.

The results are interesting…  By this metric, the most slim fitting shirts come from Ben Sherman, Esprit, DKNY, and Kenneth Cole.  Banana Republic’s new “Heritage Fit” is also pretty narrow in the waist.  Peculiar was that H&M’s Regular Fit was slimmer than the H&M Slim Fit – not by much though, and if we were to compare chest width to midsection width the Slim Fit would be considered slimmer.  Finally, a lot of people recommend Brooks Brothers slim fit, so we were surprised to find that it’s nearly last on the list.

Of course, the problem with trying to find an off the rack shirt that fits is that once you do, you’re still going to have to worry about style, quality and price.  If you don’t want to deal with all that, just head to Proper Cloth and get it right the first time.  We can base your shirt on any of these sizes and even let you tweak the fit directly.

Second year B-School students, we feel your pain.  You’re $150,000 in debt, your pre-MBA company is on the verge of bankruptcy, you don’t have a job offer yet and you’re desperately grasping for a way to salvage your reputation as the effortlessly-successful-got-everything-under-control young professional.

You may have come to business school with the intention of “figuring out what you want to do”.  But you soon realized that certain jobs are for losers and certain jobs are for winners.

You are a winner, and you’re not going to let something as petty as enjoying your work get in the way of winning.

You did some research last year, and realized the best industry to flaunt your winningness is finance.  Constantly pestered with that nagging question of “why?” you perfected the ability to retort “I’m just really passionate about finance/banking/investing” with the same confidence that you’d say “assets = debt + equity”.

Of course, since you’ve been subscribing to the Wall Street Journal for a full 6 months now, you’re  hyper-aware that now is the absolute worst time this century to be looking for a job in banking.  That’s ok you tell yourself:  “I’ve managed adversity before – I will adapt”.  You begin to evaluate your options: Hedgefunds: No, Banks: No, Private Equity: No, General Motors: Definite No, Google: No, Technology Startup: Absolute last resort.  Striking out here… Hmm, what companies thrive when the economy is in a slump?  It hits you: Aha -

When profits fall, companies need to cut costs.  When companies need to cut costs they need to fire people.  When companies need to fire people, they hire consultants.

Brilliant!! You will be a winner after all.

We’re not making this stuff up.  This is exactly what is going on.  Oh yeah – we’re gonna some how tie this back to fashion.  That is after all what we worry about at Proper Cloth.  Here’s what we suggest:

1. Avoid the white cuffs and collars.  They were never intended for entry level MBA’s anyways, but more than ever you want to dress less like Gordon Gecko and more like Bill Gates.
2. Get your shirts tailored (or custom made by Proper Cloth).  Consultants don’t typically wear jackets, so your shirt will be more visible.  Make sure it fits right.
3. Go with the spread collar, or button down collar.  Consultants don’t generally wear ties, and these collars both look great with the top button open.
4. Get some high quality fabric, preferably wrinkle free.  You’ll be on the road all the time.  You will be packing your shirts in your suit case and wearing them in front of the client the next day.  Those shirts you got from your chinese tailor for $20 are made from cheap fabric that wrinkles easily.  Spend a bit more and you’ll look good under pressure.
5. Pay attention to the details.  With out the nice suit jacket, bright tie, and shiny cuff links, your shirt needs to speak for itself.  That means you should be looking for quality detailing on the collar, and cuffs in particular.

Best of luck.  Look good and be a winner!