Does Anyone Really Need a Made-to-Measure T-Shirt?
On a fiercely hot day in the summer of 2022, in the dog days of the pandemic, I had my bum sized up by a man who was wearing a protective visor (and who can blame him?) at a boutique on Chiltern Street, the Marylebone menswear mecca.
This was strictly in the name of research, for a piece in the Financial Times — where else? — about — what else? — made-to-measure underpants.
Working closely with the shop-assistant-slash-private-tailor (by which I mean sitting near him) I selected from a Gatsbyesque array of fabrics and finishes, the most luxurious of which was a pair of boxers in a cashmere blend, to be monogrammed with my initials. Please forgive a further unedifying image but when, some weeks later, the finished product arrived at my home, handsomely boxed and wrapped in fine tissue paper, I put them on, and then instantly took them off. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the sort of man who would have his initials stitched into his grundies.
I believe I have, over the years, been able to maintain an appropriate sense of my own essential absurdity — even under extreme provocation such as this. But it is necessary to keep a watchful eye on one’s vanity. Made-to-measure underpants were an indulgence, and an imposture, too far. (As a side note, I don’t — yet — need my pants to remind me of my name. And anyone else who sees me in my pants already knows who I am, worse luck.)
Not to say they weren’t very nice pants. Oh! These were the cat’s pajamas of cashmere boxers. But to put it bluntly, unless one were in some way seriously misshapen, or really quite spectacularly blessed / cursed, why on earth would a man need his pants made to measure?
“Why do you need made to measure anything?” The man in the visor had answered my question with a question of his own. “It delivers a better product.”
I’m not sure about that. If you can afford one, a bespoke suit — more elaborate and involved than made to measure — can be a beautiful thing indeed. The process of selecting cloths and patterns and colours and buttons and vents, and then deciding on a cut, and myriad further details, is fun, and spoiling. But again, unless one is particularly tall, or short, or fat, or thin, or otherwise unusually put together (misplaced limb, that sort of thing), off-the-peg suits do the job admirably, for the most part. And you can always have them tailored if you drop a few pounds or, more likely, put them on.
All this flashed through my head a couple of weeks ago, when I was invited, in my capacity as editor of Britain’s best-dressed magazine, to help celebrate the opening of a splendid new Sunspel shop, on Jermyn Street in London, by having a T-shirt made to measure.
Sunspel, founded in Nottingham in 1860, has a proud heritage of quality and innovation in underwear and, lately, fashionable outerwear, too. It is famous for its T-shirts, among other things, made from Sea Island cotton, both flattering, hard-wearing and supremely comfortable. So much so that a few years ago in Esquire, my colleague Charlie Teasdale named them the best T-shirts in the world.
In September, I was led into the basement of the shop, where the company’s long and storied history is celebrated, and the tailoring was done by a very accommodating Frenchwoman. I selected fabric (mid-weight cotton), sleeve length — longish, I’m no Jeremy Allen White in the biceps dept. — collar, and colour. (Navy.) Typically, I fluctuate between a size M and an L, depending on lunch. This time I was to be a size Me.
I don’t usually go in for pocket Ts but on this occasion I threw caution to the wind. And the monogram, since it was obvious they really wanted me to get one, was also in navy, and on the hem, where I wouldn’t have to look at it.
Two weeks later my T-shirt arrived, in a pretty box wrapped with a bow, with a card telling me it had been handmade in Long Eaton, the Derbyshire town to which Sunspel moved in 1937, in the case of my T-shirt by an employee called Christine.
I am already a Sunspel fan. I own shirts and T-shirts and pants. I have a handsome Sunspel car coat for rainy days. A few years ago, Esquire collaborated with Sunspel on a version of their Riviera polo shirt — the one Daniel Craig wears in Casino Royale — and a loopback sweatshirt. (Idiotically, I neglected to pinch either of those.) But don’t take it from us: the unfailingly dapper Charlie Watts, late beat-keeper for the Rolling Stones, was a Sunspel T-shirt man. So is Cillian Murphy.
So I needed no convincing of the virtues of this noble British label. But I must say, the made to measure T-shirt is a cut above. It fits like a T-shirt should, neither too baggy nor too tight. It is neither too heavy nor too light. The Charlies (Teasdale and Watts) might be right: it could be the perfect T-shirt. I’m glad I opted for the pocket, too; sometimes the inessential things are the ones you love the most.
So, I’m a convert. From now on I shall pity anyone wearing a T-shirt that hasn’t been handmade made for them, to their specifications, preferably by Christine in Long Eaton.
You mean to tell me you buy your own T-shirts off the peg? Dear, dear! It simply won’t do.
Visit Sunspel on 23 Jermyn Street to give the Bespoke T-shirt service a go.
You Might Also Like
