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how to tell hand made dress shirt

sho'nuff

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I recently bought some Borrelli dress shirts and really enthralled by them. To my uneducated eye, I am not really able to discern the various handmade aspects that goes into a shirt like in the collar, buttonhole.

I can sort of tell at the armhole. especially these neopolitan shirts they have the folded over part at the top stitched in by hand.

but how do you tell at the collar and other key areas?
is it by the uneven stitches? if so, even the barba shirt i have (black label, they arent supposed to be hand stitched except for the armhole) have the uneven stitches at the collar area where it attaches so it is confusing me if im looking for the right thing.


the buttonholes. i still cant determine that even on suits. (i see some unevenness (and a little thickness of feel) of the buttonhole on somethings but then someone said that was machinemade, so i was like wha? now it's confusing).

just enjoy your shirt, youll say some of you. yeah, i do. that is why i ask. i have the ones that are on vch.com.
some people here claim they can tell right by looking at the photo. how can you tell?


--
also , is it possible to go over some of the terms like gusset, yoke ( i heard somewhere someone saying separate yoke or something like that) , box pleat? i know what dart is, and so forth.

yes, ive searched here and on google. not a good job on dress shirts.

if anyone can provide any bit of info on any question above it would be greatly appreciated. thanks.
 

winston

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Hand stitches generally look less neat than machine stitches, and there will be larger spaces visible between each stitch. These spaces will vary in size as the person sewing won't/can't place each stitch exactly the same distance from the last one each time.

At the collar, look for relatively widely spaced diagonal stitches attaching the collar to the shirt. The same can be seen on cuffs which are fixed by hand.

You can see the same sort of stitch on the armhole on the inside. On the outside of the armhole, and on the seam running from the armhole up to the collar, on a handmade shirt you can usually see (depending on the fabric - some fabrics hide stitches really well) small, bead-like stitches spaced every few millimetres. They look like the pick stitching on the lapels of a sportjacket. The same thing can be seen on some shirts which have hand stitches down the front placket. (The panel where the buttons and buttonholes are on the front of a shirt).

Hand made buttonholes look, again, less neat than machine-made holes. A machine can quickly make stitches very close together which makes the stitching look very dense and individual stitches can be hard to discern. When sewn by hand, each stitch which forms the buttonhole is placed beside the last one and there can be a slight space between them, and one might be longer than the next. On the back side you will notice the lack of machine precision is even greater.

The yoke is the panel of material across the top of the back of the shirt. A split yoke is two pieces and the seam goes down the center. Apparently a split yoke can correct the fit on an asymmetrical shoulder.

A box pleat is a rectangular fold of material running down the back of the shirt, the same width as the front placket, beginning at the bottom of the yoke. The material basically folds back on itself slightly on each side of the narrow box, which causes there to be extra material inside which sort of unfolds upon horizontal stretching of the back panel, giving a little extra fabric at times when the body needs it, like when stretching the arms forward. You might also see these on safari-style chest pockets and other applications. The box can also be inside the shirt, in which case you'll see a split rather than the box itself.
 

sho'nuff

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Originally Posted by winston
Hand stitches generally look less neat than machine stitches, and there will be larger spaces visible between each stitch. These spaces will vary in size as the person sewing won't/can't place each stitch exactly the same distance from the last one each time.

At the collar, look for relatively widely spaced diagonal stitches attaching the collar to the shirt. The same can be seen on cuffs which are fixed by hand.

You can see the same sort of stitch on the armhole on the inside. On the outside of the armhole, and on the seam running from the armhole up to the collar, on a handmade shirt you can usually see (depending on the fabric - some fabrics hide stitches really well) small, bead-like stitches spaced every few millimetres. They look like the pick stitching on the lapels of a sportjacket. The same thing can be seen on some shirts which have hand stitches down the front placket. (The panel where the buttons and buttonholes are on the front of a shirt).

Hand made buttonholes look, again, less neat than machine-made holes. A machine can quickly make stitches very close together which makes the stitching look very dense and individual stitches can be hard to discern. When sewn by hand, each stitch which forms the buttonhole is placed beside the last one and there can be a slight space between them, and one might be longer than the next. On the back side you will notice the lack of machine precision is even greater.

The yoke is the panel of material across the top of the back of the shirt. A split yoke is two pieces and the seam goes down the center. Apparently a split yoke can correct the fit on an asymmetrical shoulder.

A box pleat is a rectangular fold of material running down the back of the shirt, the same width as the front placket, beginning at the bottom of the yoke. The material basically folds back on itself slightly on each side of the narrow box, which causes there to be extra material inside which sort of unfolds upon horizontal stretching of the back panel, giving a little extra fabric at times when the body needs it, like when stretching the arms forward. You might also see these on safari-style chest pockets and other applications. The box can also be inside the shirt, in which case you'll see a split rather than the box itself.


very nice. thanks winston
 

alliswell

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Two points - there are no handmade dress shirts. There are hand-finished dress shirts, with the details winston pointed out.

And a split yoke is only required to pattern match a striped shirt.
 

winston

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Also, hand stitching is basically less visible on the exterior of the shirt. One of the ways I could tell that the new Borrelli's have less handwork is the visible machine stitch along the shoulder seam. On old models you would just see the tiny, widely spaced hand stitches and you'd have to look close. The business is all on the inside with handwork.
 

winston

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Originally Posted by alliswell
Two points - there are no handmade dress shirts. There are hand-finished dress shirts, with the details winston pointed out.


Well yes, the hand-sewn seams in most places have a machine stitch running parallel.
 

SpallaCamiccia

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Originally Posted by sho'nuff
I recently bought some Borrelli dress shirts and really enthralled by them. To my uneducated eye, I am not really able to discern the various handmade aspects that goes into a shirt like in the collar, buttonhole.

I can sort of tell at the armhole. especially these neopolitan shirts they have the folded over part at the top stitched in by hand.

but how do you tell at the collar and other key areas?
is it by the uneven stitches? if so, even the barba shirt i have (black label, they arent supposed to be hand stitched except for the armhole) have the uneven stitches at the collar area where it attaches so it is confusing me if im looking for the right thing.


the buttonholes. i still cant determine that even on suits. (i see some unevenness (and a little thickness of feel) of the buttonhole on somethings but then someone said that was machinemade, so i was like wha? now it's confusing).

just enjoy your shirt, youll say some of you. yeah, i do. that is why i ask. i have the ones that are on vch.com.
some people here claim they can tell right by looking at the photo. how can you tell?


--
also , is it possible to go over some of the terms like gusset, yoke ( i heard somewhere someone saying separate yoke or something like that) , box pleat? i know what dart is, and so forth.

yes, ive searched here and on google. not a good job on dress shirts.

if anyone can provide any bit of info on any question above it would be greatly appreciated. thanks.



On Lanc´s badge of great Borrellis, you can also see the hand stitching behind the placket. Buttons are handmade too and shoulders. The collar is attached by machine , I´ll got to return him a shirt as the stitches around the collar was a bit rough and it scratches my collar. The shirt was nice.


This year Borrelli´s are NOT hand made but the shoulders as I posted on another thread. And the quality is like made in China, so get as many as possible from Lance.
 

FidelCashflow

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Doesn't Borrelli shirts come with a little guide in the hanging tag that shows what's handmade?

At least the one pair of Borrelli pants I own did. There was a tiny little guide to all the parts of the garment that are made by hand with illustrations and explanations.
 

SpallaCamiccia

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Originally Posted by FidelCashflow
Doesn't Borrelli shirts come with a little guide in the hanging tag that shows what's handmade?

At least the one pair of Borrelli pants I own did. There was a tiny little guide to all the parts of the garment that are made by hand with illustrations and explanations.


Yes , you´ re right.

But on the blue Borrelli from ebay from this season that I returned, the booklet, the same as always was incluided and nothing but shoulders were hand made.
 

sho'nuff

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Originally Posted by SpallaCamiccia
On Lanc´s badge of great Borrellis, you can also see the hand stitching behind the placket. Buttons are handmade too and shoulders. The collar is attached by machine , I´ll got to return him a shirt as the stitches around the collar was a bit rough and it scratches my collar. The shirt was nice.


This year Borrelli´s are NOT hand made but the shoulders as I posted on another thread. And the quality is like made in China, so get as many as possible from Lance.


nice. got to go home and check out ma borrellis again.

yeah, i think you are right about the last chance. ive got the go ahead on getting more shirts , my wife loves the fit on them as much as i do, we never seen a better fitting , better looking shirt.

it's to the point now, im going through my closet and taking out all bnwt, once /twice worn shirts to resell. ive got two kent wang shirts in white and in light blue, some rlbls, and a rlpl. gonna sell them (at a loss again
laugh.gif
) and sub them with solid color basics from borrellis.
i just cant believe there is a better fittting, more masculine looking rtw dress shirt for around 120 now or any time soon
 

SpallaCamiccia

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Originally Posted by sho'nuff
nice. got to go home and check out ma borrellis again.

yeah, i think you are right about the last chance. ive got the go ahead on getting more shirts , my wife loves the fit on them as much as i do, we never seen a better fitting , better looking shirt.

it's to the point now, im going through my closet and taking out all bnwt, once /twice worn shirts to resell. ive got two kent wang shirts in white and in light blue, some rlbls, and a rlpl. gonna sell them (at a loss again
laugh.gif
) and sub them with solid color basics from borrellis.
i just cant believe there is a better fittting, more masculine looking rtw dress shirt for around 120 now or any time soon


Well , If you were in Europe, you could find even for 60 euros very very nice italian rtw shirts ( 2nd brand name of Delsiena ) with even slimmer pattern than those, great for a skinny one as me , not handmade of course and worst fabrics , of course.

I wish Lance could find some more.. he bought 1300!!
 

wysiwyg

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So at the risk of poking the hornet's nest, what's the benefit of hand-done stitching if the effort is machine duplicated? Is it for the uniqueness/specialness factor?
 

FidelCashflow

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Originally Posted by wysiwyg
So at the risk of poking the hornet's nest, what's the benefit of hand-done stitching if the effort is machine duplicated? Is it for the uniqueness/specialness factor?

AFAIK, yes.
 

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