Anyone try Brooks Brothers' new create your own shirt function?

So was looking on BB's website and it appears they now let you create your own shirt, selecting fabric, collar, cuff, pocket, back pleats and fit. Curious if anyone has tried the service and what the thoughts are on it. Seems like it could be a good bet for sub-$200 shirts, especially if one already likes the fit of BB's shirts but just wants more options.

I think its the same as the special order shirts in the store. If you buy 3 you get 25% off.

Originally Posted by Wolfador

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I think its the same as the special order shirts in the store. If you buy 3 you get 25% off.

Yup, just nice to have it online but wasn't sure if anyone had tried it and how happy they were with the orders. Usually just hear about their OTR stuff here.

I tried a couple shirts a few years ago. I seem to recall that it took a long time and the buttons weren't the thicker button like those on the luxury shirt, but seemed to be the normal button. Considering that you're paying luxury prices, I thought that was chintzy. The store changed the buttons for me, but the whole thing seemed more trouble than it was worth.

While I have ultimately been pleased with the quality and fit of the finished products, ordering MTO and MTM shirts through Brooks has always been a ton of trouble IME. I've had to send a number of orders back b/c they weren't detailed correctly, or were made from the wrong material all together. Not worth the effort when there are alternatives like MyTailor. Of course, if you want a MTO or MTM shirt with a button-down collar you don't really have any choice but to go through Brooks...

Originally Posted by The Louche

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While I have ultimately been pleased with the quality and fit of the finished products, ordering MTO and MTM shirts through Brooks has always been a ton of trouble IME. I've had to send a number of orders back b/c they weren't detailed correctly, or were made from the wrong material all together. Not worth the effort when there are alternatives like MyTailor. Of course, if you want a MTO or MTM shirt with a button-down collar you don't really have any choice but to go through Brooks...

The attraction to me is that I don't need MTM (BB ESF fit well enough) but I really like the ability to get cutaway collar, non-pocket, french cuff shirts in a slim fit without having to pay RLPL prices (even though these aren't RLPL quality). Further, I appreciate the fact that, unlike MyTailor, BB has B&M stores all over so I have the best of both worlds: I can order from home and assuming all is well that's where it ends, but if need be, I have an actual store I can bring stuff back to as opposed to the hassles of shipping.

Originally Posted by TimelesStyle

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The attraction to me is that I don't need MTM (BB ESF fit well enough) but I really like the ability to get cutaway collar, non-pocket, french cuff shirts in a slim fit without having to pay RLPL prices (even though these aren't RLPL quality). Further, I appreciate the fact that, unlike MyTailor, BB has B&M stores all over so I have the best of both worlds: I can order from home and assuming all is well that's where it ends, but if need be, I have an actual store I can bring stuff back to as opposed to the hassles of shipping.


I ordered 4 recently, they took about 2 months but I am pretty happy with the final product, although I think I should have went for ESF rather than Slim Fit. After 25% discount or whatever it was around $80 a shirt which is pretty good IMO. The english spread collar is great, hard to find dress shirts around me with a real spead collar.

Originally Posted by Ag229487

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I ordered 4 recently, they took about 2 months but I am pretty happy with the final product, although I think I should have went for ESF rather than Slim Fit. After 25% discount or whatever it was around $80 a shirt which is pretty good IMO. The english spread collar is great, hard to find dress shirts around me with a real spead collar.

Are those shirts made in the US or China?

I ordered several shirts three years ago. I was pleased with them. Took a couple of months.

Originally Posted by Ag229487

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I ordered 4 recently, they took about 2 months but I am pretty happy with the final product, although I think I should have went for ESF rather than Slim Fit. After 25% discount or whatever it was around $80 a shirt which is pretty good IMO. The english spread collar is great, hard to find dress shirts around me with a real spead collar.

Yea, I like that they not only offer a spread, but a cutaway as well (called Londoner). It's also a great way to get fabrics rarely offered in ESF, such as some of the great, very "British" stripes (alternating blue and red is my favorite) or thicker white fabrics in that fit as well.

Oh, and this also is a great way to deal with one of my biggest pet peeves about BB's shirts: that damn pocket!

Originally Posted by TimelesStyle

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Yea, I like that they not only offer a spread, but a cutaway as well (called Londoner). It's also a great way to get fabrics rarely offered in ESF, such as some of the great, very "British" stripes (alternating blue and red is my favorite) or thicker white fabrics in that fit as well.

Oh, and this also is a great way to deal with one of my biggest pet peeves about BB's shirts: that damn pocket!

you can remove the pocket, just use a seam ripper, or if you rather not risk cutting the shirt on accident, the tailors in store can do it in a couple of minutes, they charge a nominal fee i can't remember but somehwere around 3-5$

Just ordered three dress shirts the other week. Had great success with a slim fit MTO order around a year ago. Their slim fit is still a little blousy so I went for the extra slim fit this time. Based on my experience with this order, if positive, I'll continue to order dress shirts only. BB is far to limited on cloth, color, and design offerings for sport shirts; for those, I'll use one of the other MTO options I've used before.

Yeah, like you would ever receive it! BB can't figure out how to ship what is purchased let alone make a shirt to custom specs and ship it. I can't imagine asking those people to do that. It is much too complicated for them. It's like asking your dog to go do the refrigerator, get a beer out, open it and bring it to you. Oh wait, a dog could probably do that before BB could figure out how to make a shirt and ship it.

I'm with you TimelessStyle. Finding a shirt off the rack that fits is difficult, so now that you can have fit, collar, cuff etc.. options is a huge benefit for those of us who care about details. While BB is probably not the greatest shirt, it is a good value and it is consistent. If it takes two months, who cares as long as it fits!

These shirts are great if you want either an exact BB collar or an exact BB fabric. For example, they are a great way to get the BB button down collar on a wide range of non-non-iron fabrics.

Issues:
1) If you want anything else, you can get much better quality for less $ from Hemrajani/MyTailor
2) These cost the same as doing full MTM with the identical fabrics at a BB brick & mortar store. So I think it's better to go in person to order, if you can
3) The MAIN reason I like the idea of this option is because it gives me access to the classic BB BD collar on a variety of shirts. However, the BD collar BB now uses isn't really the classic. They don't give any tie space anymore and the collar is lined with a cardboard-like feeling. There is no way to avoid this through the select service. I've requested unlined collars with tie space when ordering MTM at the NYC flagship store with mixed results - they were happy to do it but it took 2 incorrect shirts to get it right (i.e., they forgot to actually make it unlined and they forgot to actually give collar space).