Why the lack of MTM/bespoke casual shirts?

My tailor does casual shirts.

Originally Posted by SoCal2NYC

Click to expand...

MTM also offers no instant gratification.
MTM also usually doesn't have a fancy labels stitched on the inside so that you can impress all of your efriends.

Wasn't there going to be a BoO made to measure program at a few stores in the country though? I would have imagined that all of you scrawny little F***ers would be all over that.

Originally Posted by whodini

Click to expand...

Yeah, because the fine people at Jantzen also happen to be bad-ass skinheads who take me out for frozen yogurt when I'm in town...

Are you really saying Jantzen is like TaT? **** man, that's just sad. You and I will have some words in a few weeks.

Isn't it made China? I assume that you are thinking about that when you say "it's just a jantzen" If not, what are you talking about?

Well, I get that there's a whole lot of room for detail in casual shirts. With that said, let's say we take three BASIC styles of casual shirts:
1. Basic buttondown shirt with 1 chest pocket
2. Western shirt (if it were up to me, I'd have it modeled after the Flat Head chambrays)
3. Military (again, if I were choosing, I'd use the Shades of Greige shirt as a model)

Unless I'm missing something REALLY big, that's a whole lot simpler than having god-know-how-many different collar lengths/spread widths/styles and cuff styles. From there, you get a couple patterns, some of which are very similar to those of popular streetwear, but more importantly, some that fill important gaps between OTR brands. For instance, I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) would love something like BoO that fits taller folks better but is still considerably slimmer than J. Crew or even H&M. Then, you get some casual fabrics. Or, better yet, you let customers mail in their own fabrics, and make the shirts from that.

I'm sure that would harder done than said, but nonetheless, I see no significant reasons that it wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by whodini

Click to expand...

Let's go basic: what's the basic difference between a shirt you see in MC and a shirt you'd see over here? Give up? Maybe some visuals will help: A trad shirt (Zegna):

A streetwear shirt (Apolis):

One is elegant, and the other one is a military-style shirt with a superfluous pocket? A pocket that is all the more jarring because it is obvious nobody is every going to put anything in it. I just don't buy the notion that sticking pockets in random places, whether it's that shirt or the bicep pocket on some Paul Smith shirts, constitutes anything approaching "art." It is really just marketing, like the Detroit automakers in the 1950s covering up for their lack of innovation and design savvy compared to the Europeans by slightly modifying the tailfins from model year to model year.

I pretty much agree with Whodini. There are so many different "options" that can be added to a streetwear shirt that it's impossible for an average bloke to go to a tailor and elucidate what he wants.

I have never seen a bespoke or mtm have any inherent design/fabric detail that my streetwear/designer shirts have. You can spot someone wearing a business shirt a mile away, I don't want to be that guy wearing that shirt untucked with jeans.

Originally Posted by jet

Click to expand...

I have never seen a bespoke or mtm have any inherent design/fabric detail that my streetwear/designer shirts have. You can spot someone wearing a business shirt a mile away, I don't want to be that guy wearing that shirt untucked with jeans.
+1 This is exactly what I was talking about.

an old pic:




fabric closeup:


this was MTM at a local tailor. casual enough?

edit: double post, sorry!

This would absolutely make my day...

BoO shirt:

Button down collar
Oxford cloth
MOP buttons
Placket Front
2 lower back darts
Faux box pleat/reverse placket
Curved hem

Had a shirt like this done during my last visit to Singapore to a satisfactory result (construction was quite poor). But fit and design, totally achievable.

An online option might be mytailor.com . I've used them for quite a while and they seem to listen to whatever needs I have. Darts and MOP buttons are standard in all my shirts from them. I doubt stitching down a faux box pleat is too difficult of a task. Though the 5 - 8 weeks turnaround time might not be much of an instant gratification.

Hahaha. I love the random MC guy chiming in with that zegna shirt being "elegant" and then some stupid tirade about superfulous design. What is elegant about that zegna shirt? It and the guy look terrible. Do people really want to dress to be like him? Depressing.

I don't like the other shirt that much either, but damn. The zegna guy cracks me up. The standard historical rule based MC discrediting of modern design was classic as well. Yes. All designs not 100% plain and are just marketing and superfluous. Do i have to post Mayakovsky in here again?

I don't dig the tie, but what other than that do you not like about the Zegna guy's outfit?

Originally Posted by jet

Click to expand...

I have never seen a bespoke or mtm have any inherent design/fabric detail that my streetwear/designer shirts have. You can spot someone wearing a business shirt a mile away, I don't want to be that guy wearing that shirt untucked with jeans.

I get what you're saying, but if the MTM was cut from chambray or houndstooth flannel or some other obviously casual fabric, had epaulettes/slanted chest pockets/other streetwear-y details, and was cut in the same pattern as a BoO shirt, but tweaked to fit you better, why would anyone mistake it for a business shirt?

Well the thing about BoO vs MTM is that band of outsiders made all these little tweaks to make the shirt what it is. BoO has a smaller pocket, shrunken placket and everything is more trim. You're sort of buying into the designer's vision vs MTM which usually caters to more businessy type shirts.

I got a MTM shirt made local by a very cool guy in Toronto, usually he makes suits/shirts etc for the young businessmen but he's worked as a buyer for holts so he's into the streetwear stuff too. He wanted to let me know that if I really wanted BoO that I should buy BoO. But yea I'm just rambling but he made me a buttondown that I really like, fit is good but it took a while because he didn't want to make me just another business shirt so he had to do samples etc.