PSA: CottonWorks now sucks

Turnaround time has increased from 1-1.5 weeks to 3-4 weeks.

Quality has gone down - pattern matching is now wonky more often than not. Consistency is now poor - shirts that are meant to have an identical pattern are different. MOP buttons are getting lousier with each consecutive batch.

And to top it off, prices have gone up.

Looks like I need to find myself a proper shirtmaker. Any recommendations?

Where are you located ?

Down Under.

. Have you thought about trying P Johnson ?

I thought they were pretty terrible to begin with. The quality of the "luxury" fabrics was laughable to say the least.

Originally Posted by aj_del

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. Have you thought about trying P Johnson ?
Yes, probably will in the future.

Originally Posted by Raoul Duke

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I thought they were pretty terrible to begin with. The quality of the "luxury" fabrics was laughable to say the least.

They seemed to get alot of love on here.

Barrington Ayre or Tailorstore.

I have been working with Stuart from Nialma (he's based in Melbourne) and so far so good - had him over last night to make some changes to my first shirt so that the rest of the order comes through perfect. Excellent guy to deal with and they use Thomas Mason fabrics along with some other nice Italian stuff, the name of which escapes me.

^ That sounds like a good deal.

pjohnson's shirts are $250 (!) and the fabric is not changing the world. If it is shirts you are after I would second nialma especially for the fabric (thomas mason), price and turnaround time.

Interesting about Cottonworks...

Interesting. I was just about to order a Thomas Mason 120s fabric from CW and now I'll hesitate. I've actually been going off the rack for shirts lately, which I thought I'd never do after starting MTM 7 years ago with Jantzen. This is partly because I think RTW makers are starting to "get it" with the fits, and partly because I can find an off the rack shirt for sub-$100 (sale price) that has better fabric, collars, and buttons than a sub $150 MTM, and I'm now only giving up a little bit in terms of fit. In 2004, it was damn near impossible to find an off the rack shirt that had a slim fit (and I'm not talking talking about sausage casing slim).

It's funny though, comparing the stitching on my Chan (3 shirts), Jantzen (dozens), and Cottonwork (2 shirts) to higher-end off the rack such as RLPL, Borrelli, etc., the Chinese MTM shirts are still far superior in my opinion.

I would heartily recommend Hemrajani/mytailor. Joe really takes pride in his shirts and strives to put out a product equal to the high end bespoke firms. If you talk to him, it's clear that he closely follows the online discussions and knows what other shirtmakers are doing and what informed customers want.

He makes individual patterns and if you see him personally, he goes all-out with dozens of measurements, photos, posture analysis, trying on sample shirts, etc. Thick MOP buttons, soft swiss interlining unfused collars/cufs, and pattern matching are std, and hand sewn arm attachments and borrelli buttons are a small upcharge. Fabrics are Thomas Mason, DJA, and Grandi & Rubinelli and prices are very competitive (CMT - $100, TM goldline - $200, DJA 170s - $240, DJA 200s - $280, DJA sea island - $300).

The one draw back is turnaround - 4-8 weeks depending on time of year.

The firm is like the WW Chan of shirts, with the other HK sites being analogous to the HK tourist hustler suit shops. As with Chan, there are lots of pics online of crap shirts coming from Hemrajani. I think this is due to a combo of (a) doing measurements online or with a fitter other than Joe, (b) choosing crap fabrics, or (c) not giving them clear direction on what kind of fit/styling you want.

Will from ASW uses him as well and you can read more about the firm and the process on his blog.

Originally Posted by apropos

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Down Under.

which city?

what about nahkle?

Originally Posted by jessis

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pjohnson's shirts are $250 (!) and the fabric is not changing the world. If it is shirts you are after I would second nialma especially for the fabric (thomas mason), price and turnaround time.

Interesting about Cottonworks...

They start at $225. My shirts from them were all $250 though, which I think is the sweet spot. Stitching is bang-on, and collars and cuffs are done well.