• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Vanda Fine Clothing - Official Affiliate Thread

gshen

Distinguished Member
Affiliate Vendor
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
1,138
Reaction score
730
Dear all,

I joined Styleforum in 2007, initially obsessing about denim and peacoats in the SW&D side, and eventually making a career out of mens clothing. I owe much of what I know about menswear to this very forum and the good friends I've made along the way, so it really feels like things have come full circle by finally becoming an affiliate on Styleforum.

Here's a little history about how Vanda Fine Clothing came to be:

In early 2010, I started selling homemade pocket squares out of old kimono silks on the B&S forums while I was in college - these were made by Diana, my then-girlfriend and now-wife. A year later, we challenged ourselves by teaching ourselves tiemaking - how hard could it be, right? (It took us a good part of a year to get things somewhat right!)

Our little venture made us realize how much we enjoyed crafting beautiful things with our own hands, but we did not have concrete plans to go into menswear full time. At least not until we took a vacation to San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, where the thriving environment of independent stores really inspired us to start our own business. Instead of starting a career in finance as I was supposed to, we dived right into the business, and Vanda Fine Clothing was born in 2011.

Our goal with Vanda Fine Clothing has always been simple – to craft our products to the best that they can be, and to have our customers enjoy wearing our products as much as we enjoy crafting them. We source our fabrics and trimmings directly from the finest folks in the industry, from handprinted silks in Macclesfield to shuttle loom woven grenadines in Como.

We are particularly proud of the fact that all our neckties, pocket squares and bow ties are made from start to finish in our own workshop in Singapore, where my wife and I plus our one employee cut and sew everything by hand, one piece at a time. It takes us about 3 hours to sew a necktie from scratch, but you watch see a condensed version of our necktie making process in this video:


[VIDEO][/VIDEO]


Based on the feedback that we received over the past four years, we've recently upgraded our website and implemented a rewards program. So you can be rest assured we're constantly thinking of ways to do better. If you have any suggestions for us at all, please feel free to drop me an email at [email protected] or a PM here.

Please also feel free to ask us any questions or request additional photos - that's what we're here for!

Cheers
Gerald & Diana
 

Claghorn

Stylish Dinosaur
Dubiously Honored
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
Messages
12,894
Reaction score
31,921
Welcome (and about time y'all became official!)
 

Murlsquirl

The Moral Squirrel
Dubiously Honored
Moderator
Joined
May 16, 2013
Messages
9,318
Reaction score
12,522
What he ^ said!
 

LA Guy

Opposite Santa
Admin
Moderator
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2002
Messages
57,373
Reaction score
36,214
It's always gratifying to see our forum members get to pursue their passion and turn their enthusiasm for menswear into their career. When j and I articulated what we wanted to do with the forum, many years ago now, one of the important points was that we wanted to have a place where small businesses could take seed and grow. We've been fortunate enough to see this happen many times over.

I've been watching the progress of gshen and Vanda for years now, and am very happy to welcome them as official affiliate vendors on the forum.

Cheers,

Fok.
 

Andy57

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
4,854
Reaction score
16,088
As a satisfied customer, it's good to see you start up an affiliate thread!
 

Mr. Six

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
6,218
Reaction score
18,615
Welcome (back) Gerald and Diana! Great to have you as affiliates. And now I'm reminded to re-send an email that might have gotten lost over the holidays.
 

Salad

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
1,046
Reaction score
540
Very cool vid. I've coveted more than a few of your ties as long as you've been making them, lol. I'll be ordering one in the near future. The hand stitched edge roll on the backside of the ends have a distinctive, beautiful shape. It's the soft "roundness" of the corners that I find most appealing. Oh, and the front of the ties are nice too. :p
 

gshen

Distinguished Member
Affiliate Vendor
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
1,138
Reaction score
730
Thanks everyone!

Huge thanks to @LA Guy for giving us the green light to sell our stuff on B&S when we just started out. Chances are we would never have started Vanda without Styleforum and its members.

If anyone is keen on a rerun of neckties you missed out, we can bring some fabrics back if there is sufficient interest (~20 ties). This obviously wouldn't apply to vintage/deadstock fabrics, but anything else should be possible!
 

Claghorn

Stylish Dinosaur
Dubiously Honored
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
Messages
12,894
Reaction score
31,921
Any chance you do any more squares along the lines of the samurai cotton? It's probably one of my favorite squares from y'all and I wear it very regularly
 
Last edited:

gshen

Distinguished Member
Affiliate Vendor
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
1,138
Reaction score
730
That was vintage kimono fabric, and sold out super quick! We can be on the lookout for more, but it's never possible to know whether we can get anything similar. We could probably work on some similar designs to be printed on silk though.
 

Claghorn

Stylish Dinosaur
Dubiously Honored
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
Messages
12,894
Reaction score
31,921
What was the story behind it?
 

gshen

Distinguished Member
Affiliate Vendor
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
1,138
Reaction score
730
^ Like most of our kimono fabrics, we get them from old fabric dealers in Japan. It's hard to tell the specific age of these fabrics, but sometimes you'll find clues, like a newspaper dated from the 60's used to stuff the cardboard roll the fabrics are rolled on, like these:

700

700
 

gshen

Distinguished Member
Affiliate Vendor
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
1,138
Reaction score
730
Good news all - we now offer free registered airmail postage worldwide for orders above S$350! For orders under $350, we still offer the same flat rate shipping rates that we used to. No coupon code is required, and you'll see the free shipping option at checkout if your order qualifies.

For Styleforum members, we are also offering an extra 30% on your rewards points. Please leave us a note on checkout with your Styleforum username and we'll add the points to your account manually.
 

jcmeyer

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2010
Messages
1,984
Reaction score
7,079
Great to see you here, Gerald. My favorite tie is still my green Vanda... and being able to choose the length and width is a huge benefit.

1000


If you're taking requests, I'd love to see some dark chocolate brown shantung pop up at some point - similar to the green or these blues:

1000


1000


All the best!
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 36.2%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 59 38.8%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.2%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 26 17.1%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 26 17.1%

Staff online

Forum statistics

Threads
505,154
Messages
10,578,819
Members
223,882
Latest member
RoberParme
Top