Bespoke shirts for men

The pattern is the difference. A made-to-measure shirt starts from an existing pattern that is then adjusted to your measurements. A bespoke shirt starts with a pattern drawn for you from nothing, which lets it account for posture and the way you actually carry your shoulders, not just a set of numbers. Both are cut to your body and both use the same cloths, so the decision usually comes down to how far your shape sits from a standard build. Your tailor will talk you through which one is worth it for you.

A shirt fits when the collar sits flat against your neck with room for two fingers inside it, the shoulder seam ends exactly where your shoulder ends, and the chest stays clean with no pulling across the buttons when you reach forward. Then check the cuff. It should sit at the base of your thumb and stay there when you bend your arm, rather than riding up your forearm. Last, raise both arms above your head. If the shirt pulls out of your waistband, the body is too short.

Woven cotton shirting shrinks a little, usually by somewhere between one and three per cent over its life, and most of that happens in the first wash or two. This is normal and expected. It is why shirtmakers leave a shrinkage allowance in the measurements rather than cutting to your exact body figures, and why a new shirt can feel very slightly roomy at the collar and cuff to begin with. Wash a shirt once or twice before you judge the fit, and tell your tailor if anything has moved, so the allowance can be adjusted next time.

Choose fused for shirts worn with a tie and unfused for shirts worn open. A fused collar has an interlining bonded to it, so it holds a crisp, flat shape and stands up cleanly under a tie knot. An unfused collar is stitched rather than bonded, so it is softer, rolls rather than standing rigid, and sits better when the top button is undone. Neither is better than the other, and you can choose differently on each shirt you order.

Wash cooler and gentler than you think you need to, and keep the shirt out of the tumble dryer. Heat is what damages cotton and what drives most avoidable shrinkage. Hang the shirt while it is still slightly damp so it dries with fewer creases, then press the collar and cuffs last, since they hold heat and take the most wear. Try not to wear the same shirt two days running, because cotton needs time to recover its shape. Our garment care guide goes into more detail.

Enough that no shirt is worn twice in a week. If you wear a shirt every working day, five or more means each one is washed less often, rests properly between wears, and lasts noticeably longer. If you are trying the service for the first time, two or three is enough to see how the cloth behaves across a week and after a few washes before you commit to a full rotation. You can add to it whenever you like.

Order the shirt at the same time as the suit, not after it. A shirt has a fitting in the middle of it, and that fitting has to suit your diary as well as ours. Leaving a clear run before the date means any adjustment is a small thing rather than a problem, and ordering both together means the collar can be chosen against the lapel rather than guessed at. Our wedding suit timeline sets out when to start.

Yes. The same service runs for women, working from the same cloth range. See our shirts and blouses for women.

It depends on the cloth and how many you order, so there is no single figure. The same shirt in a hard-wearing everyday poplin and in a fine, rarer cloth are two different orders, and the cost per shirt falls once your pattern exists. Your tailor will go through numbers with you at the consultation, before anything is committed to.