Broke and Bespoke

I just received a shirt this morning courtesy of Proper Cloth, and my first impressions can be summed up as follows: WOW!

This is my first foray into online MTM shirting, and I will say that Proper Cloth dialed in the fit perfectly, and the construction appears top-notch. Solid and straight stitching (at least 16 stitches per inch) throughout, no loose threads, and great pattern matching on the chest pocket.

Proper Cloth offers several options the customer can use to dial in a fit, each with very helpful video instructions on how to make sure you’re doing it in the way that the shirt makers will be using to interpret your measurements. 

I went the route of taking the measurements of a shirt that already fit me perfectly, which I’d had made up for me in Beijing last year. I will say that I am more than pleased with the outcome. But even if I’d chosen my shirt through the ‘Smart Sizes’ algorithm that Proper Cloth provides to determine your shirt measurements based upon your preferences (slim vs. regular, etc.), height, weight, etc., the measurements wouldn’t have been far off from my Beijing Bespoke shirt, and likely would have suited me just fine. 

As an added bonus to decrease the risky venture online MTM can often be, Proper Cloth offers a ‘Perfect Fit Guarantee’ where they’ll alter or remake your first shirt for free, and help ensure that you end up with a shirt that you love, and a set of measurements that can be stored for future orders.

Proper Cloth’s prices run from ~$80 for the most basic fabrics, into shirtings well over $100 made with finer fabrics, and are as such beyond my general price range. But for readers who are willing to shell out a little extra for MTM shirting I think the starting price of $80 is a bargain compared to off-the-rack shirts that can run you more than that at the department store, or in shops like J. Crew. And with some of those, you might even need a trip to the tailor to have minor adjustments made, adding $15-20 onto the original retail price of the shirt. 

Since the shirt is brand new, I will wait a few washes and let the allowed-for shrinkage to occur before posting a full review, but I’m pretty certain it’s going to become one of my favorites. Here are a few pics of the shirt as it arrived.