Evergreen88
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2018
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I wanted to share my experience in searching the right kind of shirt around London and ask for some advice.
A bit of background first: I am in the slow and moderately expensive process of improving my wardrobe. In the past couple of years I bought a decent amount of good shoes, a decent italian suit (I am Italian but I live in London), good trousers and so on. Shirt wise I am slacking behind.
At the moment I wear TM Lewin fitted shirts for my office shirts and PLRL for my casual shirts.
So wanting to step up my shirt game I started to do my homeworks and research on this forum and elsewhere. I am looking for a well made shirt (good fabric, mop buttons, split yoke, pattern matching etc...), that justifies the extra expense compared to TM Lewin (I usulaus get them for 25-30£ each using various offers).
I am looking at the around 100/150£ per shirt, with a slim and young cut.
So I started my tour from the most obvious choices: Brooks Brothers and Hackett. I must say I wasn't very impressed, for shirts that cost 3 or 4 times my current shirts, they are still made in third-world countries, with plastic buttons, and pretty conservative designs. At sales price I might consider them, but not full price. BB has a "made in US mop buttons", but for 160£ seems a bit too expensive to me.
I then visited Harvie & Hudson, that on paper (well..on the website) looked very interesting and they were having also good sales. As soon as I got there I felt like it wasn't the right place for me, that their target audience was 20 years older than me and much larger (I am 30, 178cm and slim). I must say, the assistant there didn't help in making me feel more comfortable, at any question he was replying suggesting me to go elsewhere. I tried a shirt (basically forcing him) and the fit was actually awful. Even their slim line had huge armholes, probably it's just a more conservative fit.
I then turned to Pink regardless of its bad fame on this forum and I was plesantly surprised. Very good collars, fabrics, construction and buttons. Unfortunately none of their ''fits" actually fit me perfectly, but the assistant (really great guy, he was very knowledgeable and helpful) suggested that they are starting their MTM service, that should be around 160£ per shirt. He also mentioned that, being part of their rebranding/expansion of their offering they will also allow customers (maybe only the first few?) To visit the fabric where they make them here in London. It's a bit over my budget, but for a shirt that ticks all the boxes seems like good value to me. And the visit might be really interesting too! Does anyone have any experience with Pink MTM? I know they did it already in the last.
Any other good value shirt in the same range (100-150£)? Either RTW or MTM?
I am actually italian, so I am able to explore options in Milan as well.
Than you!
P.S. sorry about the typo in the title, can I fix it?
A bit of background first: I am in the slow and moderately expensive process of improving my wardrobe. In the past couple of years I bought a decent amount of good shoes, a decent italian suit (I am Italian but I live in London), good trousers and so on. Shirt wise I am slacking behind.
At the moment I wear TM Lewin fitted shirts for my office shirts and PLRL for my casual shirts.
So wanting to step up my shirt game I started to do my homeworks and research on this forum and elsewhere. I am looking for a well made shirt (good fabric, mop buttons, split yoke, pattern matching etc...), that justifies the extra expense compared to TM Lewin (I usulaus get them for 25-30£ each using various offers).
I am looking at the around 100/150£ per shirt, with a slim and young cut.
So I started my tour from the most obvious choices: Brooks Brothers and Hackett. I must say I wasn't very impressed, for shirts that cost 3 or 4 times my current shirts, they are still made in third-world countries, with plastic buttons, and pretty conservative designs. At sales price I might consider them, but not full price. BB has a "made in US mop buttons", but for 160£ seems a bit too expensive to me.
I then visited Harvie & Hudson, that on paper (well..on the website) looked very interesting and they were having also good sales. As soon as I got there I felt like it wasn't the right place for me, that their target audience was 20 years older than me and much larger (I am 30, 178cm and slim). I must say, the assistant there didn't help in making me feel more comfortable, at any question he was replying suggesting me to go elsewhere. I tried a shirt (basically forcing him) and the fit was actually awful. Even their slim line had huge armholes, probably it's just a more conservative fit.
I then turned to Pink regardless of its bad fame on this forum and I was plesantly surprised. Very good collars, fabrics, construction and buttons. Unfortunately none of their ''fits" actually fit me perfectly, but the assistant (really great guy, he was very knowledgeable and helpful) suggested that they are starting their MTM service, that should be around 160£ per shirt. He also mentioned that, being part of their rebranding/expansion of their offering they will also allow customers (maybe only the first few?) To visit the fabric where they make them here in London. It's a bit over my budget, but for a shirt that ticks all the boxes seems like good value to me. And the visit might be really interesting too! Does anyone have any experience with Pink MTM? I know they did it already in the last.
Any other good value shirt in the same range (100-150£)? Either RTW or MTM?
I am actually italian, so I am able to explore options in Milan as well.
Than you!
P.S. sorry about the typo in the title, can I fix it?