Fitted Shirts-Sizing-Tie Length

The following are some recent questions that I thought would be great to share.

Customer Question #1: Why don't you have fitted shirts anymore? Although the quality of your dress shirts is first rate (as are some of the herringbone and other tone-on-tone fabrics), those of us who are on the slim-to-athletic side do not like to spend money on properly tailoring flat-front suit or dress trousers just to have yards of shirt fabric billowing out around the waist. It looks sloppy, makes the wearer look fat, and is generally at odds with the point of wearing things that fit. It’s pretty bad when your retail stores suggest that buyers put "darts" in standard-fit shirts to bring them in. Darts are for blouses, not shirts.

Scott Reply: We do have fitted shirts. At the moment there are 3 styles of fitted shirts in the stores and on the Website. MFSHRT F07 K09 Green and MFSHRT F07 K09 Blue, and MFSHRT F07 K01 White. Concerning “Darts”, we work with the finest shirt pattern makers in Europe and have tried fitted shirts with darts and without darts, frankly, we happen to agree with our pattern makers and a proper fitted shirt has darts. Most men who need a fitted shirt, because of their structure, large shoulders but a smaller waist, need the room throughout the armhole and chest, but just need the waist smaller. To achieve this, with the proper portions and to not “Twist” the shirt, darts are necessary. The best way to think of this, may be to look at your suit coat. Most suit coats, with the exception of a “Sack Suit”, will have a “Dart” in the front of a coat. When we are making an “Athletic Fit” suit coat, this front “Dart” is key, because the sides of the coat can only be adjusted so much. I appreciate your comment that “Darts” are for blouses only, however I have several very professional pattern makers in Italy that would find exception with that.

Customer Question #2: What neck size fitting standard do you use? It's been my experience buying your products that if you follow Kuhlman metric sizes and standard cross references, you end up with Kuhlman shirts that are 1/4 to 1/2" smaller than you would expect. I'm sure that if you corrected this, no one would complain - especially anyone who machine dries these shirts. Sometimes it's nice to be able to take something to the cleaners - like when you are out of town.

Scott Reply: Concerning sizes, the conversion chart that we use is as close as we can come, remember converting inches to centimeters “Exactly”, no one would understand. Also keep in mind that shirt Spec’s in America are all over the board. Susan and I have made shirts for many other retailers using their specs, because of “Vanity” sizing, we have specs from many retailers that neck sizes are actually 1 inch larger then what is on the shirt tag. In Europe they do not have this “Vanity” sizing, when you measure the neck, if the tag on the shirt says 41, then the circumference is really 41 centimeters. Our mentality is more “Find the size that fits you properly”, then go with it. We have worked with the best pattern makers over the years to perfect patterns and we believe that the Kuhlman Fit works great for most customers - it is only a matter of finding the size that works for you.

Customer Question #3: Could you get some ties in that are constructed properly for the cutaway collars? A little longer, a little wider, and 7-fold?

Scott’s Reply: Our ties are constructed properly for cutaway collars. A tie is a tie and you do not make a tie specifically for a cutaway collar. The knot should be tied exactly like the knot on the regular kuhlman collar. I would guess by your comment that you are trying to tie a Full Windsor knot, which is common in England. We prefer a “Double Four in Hand” knot, which is simply wrapping the tie around twice rather then once, then you do not pull the knot tight, this allows for a “Dimple” which the Full Windsor does not. It also allows you to not use as much tie, which I’m sure is your comment on the “Length” of the tie. One other note, ties today are worn shorter in Europe than in the US, something else we prefer. You also must realize that it is not as simple as to simply make the tie longer. Because of the way that tie fabric is woven, we would need to use different looms (wider) to make fabric wider, to accommodate a longer tie. Ties are cut on the bias and the width of the fabric determines the length of the tie - looms for the most part are a standard width.