I chose their Navy Blue Pick-Stitch Suit with Peak Lapels (regular retail price $379). The peak lapels because I’d always heard that they accentuate your height (and they just seem cool). After picking the style and entering my measurements, just a few weeks passed and my suit arrived in the mail. Now that I’ve worn it at a few weddings this summer I can say this:

I am extremely satisfied with my Indochino suit — and would recommend them highly (with a few minor caveats). Details below the slideshow.

THE FIT:

As a shorter guy, fit is paramount. And basically, the fit is perfect. Sleeve length, shoulders, jacket hem length, crotch, waist, inseam — all are spot on. I couldn’t be more impressed! Much better than anything I’ve ever tried OTR.

This is now my best-fitting suit.

That said, I’d already done an online shirt measurement with ATailoredSuit and jacket with DressMonkey, so I was checking and rechecking my numbers against those as I went through Indochino’s self-measuring process — just to see if the numbers were in the right ballpark.

I found that Indochino’s online measurement guides were helpful and accurate, but my first caveat is this: There’s probably always potential for a customer to screw up a measurement. Maybe it’s your first time going MTM, maybe you can’t handle a tape-measure, or maybe you *think* you know your measurements, but they’re wrong — or you’ve gained or lost weight. In any case, there’s definitely the potential for error (I experienced this my first time doing MTM with DressMonkey).

On the other hand, Indochino has a 100% Perfect Fit Guarantee. And this policy is a huge selling point for me. It boils down to these three options:

1. they credit you $75 for alterations at your local tailor
2. you send it back and they fix it
3. they make you a brand-new one for free

Amazing. I don’t see any risk here, which is incredibly smart from a marketing perspective. Indochino has removed the single biggest reservation that people ordering MTM clothing online have: fear that you’ll be stuck with something that doesn’t fit (and out hundreds of dollars).

And here’s another neat thing. Let’s say, the sleeves do end up being too long. You decide to bring it to your local tailor. Indochino has a printable Alterations Form to take with you. It provides detailed info on each aspect of the garment: exactly how many inches each element can be shortened or lengthened.

And once your tailor is done, they note the changes on the form, you enter the info into “My Measurements” on Indochino.com, and next time you order a suit from them, it should be perfect.

When it comes to fit, they’ve thought of everything.

MATERIAL & CONSTRUCTION:

Here’s the one potential downside: I didn’t think the quality of fabric and workmanship of my suit was super high. It’s perfectly fine, but certainly not luxurious or finely wrought. And they don’t seem to offer actual fabric swatches on their site, which is a bummer.

To be fair, I’m not an expert on fabric or garment construction. But I’m not a knuckle-dragger whose girlfriend can’t get him out of his baseball hats and into a suit, either. I’m interested in menswear and enjoy dressing well when it’s appropriate. And I just don’t feel like the quality is quite there.

But it may not matter to most people. To be honest, at this low price point, it doesn’t matter to me.

The thing is, I don’t think these details would be noticeable to anyone other than a true clotheshorse or someone in the menswear industry. The other 99% of people you’d encounter — at weddings, your office, the Oscars, or wherever you’d wear a suit — won’t be able to tell the difference. What they will notice is that you look sharp in your perfect-fitting suit.

COST:

Their suits run from $300 to $500, but the vast majority are under $400. And they offer free worldwide shipping. Gotta love those prices!

So, OK. If you want a high-quality MTM suit, you are just going to have to pay well over $1000, and should probably do it at a local brick-and-mortar suitmaker anyway. But ultimately, for less than $400, a great-fitting suit based on your exact measurements is completely worth it.

It’s way better than spending the same amount of cash — or more — for something ill-fitting you’d get off the rack at Men’s Wearhouse et al. I can’t put it more strongly than this: Although this suit was free, I would absolutely buy another suit from them with my own money. I’m already ogling this baby…

BOTTOM LINE:

With their perfect fit, decent quality, and low cost, Indochino is a fantastic option for short men — or guys of any size.

–Phil, 5-foot-5, 125 pounds

Good point. There’s not a whole lot on Short Shrifted about winter jackets. Time to remedy that. Two things come immediately to mind — and then I’d love to get some reader suggestions for Phil.

1. When I interviewed the 5-foot-6 Anthony Valente in my review of a haircut at Xac Anthony Salon, he offered a few leads:

   The North Face: “The unfortunate thing about winter is you gotta wear those big, puffy jackets to keep warm. But The North Face is great because they’re not too puffy where I look as wide as I am tall. They’re classic; they’re not trendy, it’s not a fad. Just a good, basic winter jacket.”

   G-Star: “I just got a nice G-Star jacket recently. Down, fur hood. It’s a little on the puffy side, but it’s not to bad.”

2. Indochino (I’m going to post my suit review soon, I swear!) makes custom outerwear. However, not sure they’d be up to snuff for a Canadian winter.

I was born and raised in Maine, so I should probably have more of a handle on the winterwear. But that’s all I have.

So what do you think — Where should Phil look? What are you going to haul out of the closet when the snow flies this year?

I was hacking a swath through the nth page of of my umpteenth advanced search of the day, tired, a bit nauseous, when lo and behold: something caught my eye as it bolted out of the textual underbrush.

A Japan-based designer graphic T-shirt label! Hmmm. I took a closer look.

They actually had an English-language site! My interest was further piqued.

I clicked through. Found the size chart. As expected from a Japanese clothing company, it looked promising. Much shorter than the average American-sized T-shirt.

But surely this was too good to be true. They probably wouldn’t ship to the US…. Not so! They do indeed. In fact, they offer free worldwide shipping on orders over ¥10,000 (approx $100). Jackpot.

This mythical-sounding species I speak of? They’re called Graniph. And after bagging a couple for myself, I can report that they are beautifully designed and fit great. In fact, for short men of average or athletic build, these are the best-fitting T-shirts I’ve come across. [full disclosure: samples were provided to me by the company gratis]. Here are the details:

DESIGN:

They’ve got a well-curated range of smart, tasteful designs that are a bit more highbrow than your typical graphic tee. Where Threadless is All-American and fun-loving, Uniqlo is Japanese and kitschy, and Top Man strives to be British and street, Graniph seems a bit more cerebral, German, above the fray. I can see how they’d appeal to graphic and interior designer and photographer types. Personally, I like their aesthetic, from the retro to the goofy to the clever to the off-kilter to the blatantly self-promotional. But don’t take my word for it, cast an eyeball over theirtheir full T-shirt catalog.

FIT:

As I said before, for short men of average or even heavier build, these are the best-fitting T-shirts I’ve seen. They seem to be shorter and yet a bit wider and looser-fitting than all the others I’ve tried — a rare combination. To give you a sense of how unusual this is, here’s how a Graniph Small stacks up against competing brands:

Advertised Chest/Length Comparison of Small T-shirts:

Clearly, Graniph has a roomier fit than these other major brands — while at the same time being significantly shorter.

Official company policy is not to use a machine dryer. T-shirt connoisseurs may hand-wash and line-dry, but for me (and probably a lot of other folks out there) that’s not a viable way to deal with my dirty-clothes-mound on a weekly basis. So if you plan to machine dry, David Smyth, a company rep, has some details on shrinkage and fit:

“We have two types of tees — basic tees (black tag) and soft tees (white tag). Soft tees will not shrink when washed as the material is polyester/cotton. Also the soft tees have a slightly tighter fit, which some people prefer. As for basic tees, these are 100% cotton, so when washed for the first time the white tees will shrink, hence they are slightly larger than other colors, to compensate for this shrinkage. Other colors will shrink very slightly.”

Personally, I found that Smalls went from a 38-inch chest/28-inch length to a 36-36.5 chest and anywhere from a 23.5-26 length (I think I had a mix of black and white labels) after a wash and a moderately toasty tumble in the dryer. Mediums went from a 40-inch chest/27.5-inch length to a 38-inch chest/24.5-26.5-inch length after drying.

You can see where this is going. For short men of moderate or even bulky builds, the eternal problem is that for those rare brands that may actually sorta fit kinda OK in the length, the chest/stomach/neck measurements are laughably too tight. Most T-shirts are skewed to tall-and-skinny Jarvis Cocker types. Even a large is 43-inch chest and only 29.5 long (and that’s before wash/dry) — the same length in AA only gets you a 34/36-inch chest.

PRICE:

Graniph’s shirts aren’t exactly cheap — about $25 a pop. But for the quality of cotton, printing, and design, I’d say these are a very good value. There are certainly plenty more expensive T-shirts out there. The shipping charge is $10 to the US. However, they offer free worldwide shipping on orders over ¥10,000 (approx $100, or about 4 full-price shirts).

So the smart thing to do is order enough shirts at a time to take advantage of the free shipping. If that’s more than you want or need, try splitting an order with a friend. David Smyth told me, “People often think that because we are in Japan it will cost a fortune to have the tees shipped, but we are trying to make our products accessible to everyone regardless of location.” With the shipping deal, I’d say they’ve succeeded.

(NOTE: Their extra-small size — “SS” — is cut differently and is meant for women, so “S” is probably the smallest you should order.)

FURTHER READING: Check out these related posts:

I’d like to say it was something more carefree, glamorous, and globetrotting. The kind of stuff the well-dressed short bloke in this snapshot was accustomed to. Oh well. (But really, who has time to read this stuff in the summer anyway?)

That said, I’ll be returning to a more regular posting schedule in September. Just wanted you to have something to look forward to after Labor Day.

I’ve now had a chance to try out a few Threadless T-shirts [Full disclosure: shirts were supplied to me gratis from the company], and think they’re a good fit for short, skinny guys.

THE BRAND:

The basic idea is this: Anyone can upload a design idea to their site. Every week, Threadless’ virtual community votes on the submissions. Winners get $2000, a gift certificate, and their design becomes ink on cotton. Like any successful online community, there’s a lot of participation (beyond just the voting). Users can create profiles, blogs, and post photos of themselves wearing the T-shirts.

What’s cool about that last part is that when you click on a T-shirt, you don’t just get the one official product image or a picture of a model. You can also see photos of every user that uploaded a pic of themselves wearing that particular shirt. They range from relatively normal to themed to candid to just plain goofy. Clearly, everyone’s having fun. So there’s a lot of love and loyalty here.

Threadless also has their own blog and a “Threadspotting” feature, where they post photos of celebs in their tees. Like 5-foot-4 Seth Green.

THE FIT:

When the label first started up, they printed all their designs on shirts they sourced wholesale from American Apparel. If that was still the case, short guys would be out of luck. AA’s T-shirts have always been extremely long. Not satisfied, Threadless developed their own proprietary T-shirt stock a few years back, and it’s a full inch shorter than AA in each size (Specifics on the switch via Wikipedia). And I liked the feel of the cotton a bit better than AA, too: it’s the perfect kind of soft and thin.

I found that brand-new Threadless tees are true to the dimensions listed on the site’s size chart: Size Extra Small is 26.5″Lx16″W; Small is 27.5″L x 18″W; Medium is 28.5″L x 20″W; etc.

But I wanted to see how they would shrink, so I did a cold-water wash (to protect the vivid colors) and a nice warm drying cycle. The result on average was a 5% shrinkage. So, after a decent tumble in the dryer, you can expect Extra Smalls to be 25″L and Smalls to be a little over 26″L (with a corresponding reduction in chest size. Not bad at all.

I’m, 5-foot-5, 125 lbs., and the Extra Smalls are laughably tight on me. Ronald, a longtime Short Shrifted reader/commenter noted that he’s “5-foot-1, 112lbs., (i.e. tiny) and I’ve had good luck with size Small.” So hopefully that tells you just how skinny these run. I’d say that that the Smalls fit me better, too: bottom hem falls at a good length, shoulder seams are where they should be, sleeves hit mid-bicep. It’s borderline too tight in the neck and torso, but I can get away with it (at least, my very kind wife says so). And actually, with just a bit of stretching out the snug areas, I should be good to go.

So as you can see, Threadless works for short guys — but only if you’re skinny. (Graniph’s T-shirts, which I’ll review next time, run a bit wider.)

THE PRICE:

Affordable. Regular shirts range from $15-$25. And they always have loads of sale shirts starting at $9. To promote participation, users get credits toward merch when they vote on new designs or upload pics, so it pays to get involved.

THE DESIGN:

Primarily illustration-based, with some shirts playing with the boundaries of traditional T-shirt design (e.g. images placed far off-center). Their main topical focus seems to be humor, cleverness, visual gags. If that resonates with you, great! I was definitely able to find some shirts that I liked and would buy — it’s almost unavoidable given the sheer number of choices on their site.

However, it’s really a matter of individual taste. Personally, I’m not drawn to most of their jokey designs. I like my puns in casual conversation, not emblazoned on my clothing (How funny is it after the first time?). But that’s me.

It’s interesting. I think the whole crowd-sourcing thing is at work here. On the one hand, the netroots is a very democratic and decentralized way to choose designs, and you’d think the resulting images would be much more varied than the aesthetic from, say, your typical top-down big-brand designers. On the other hand, the type of designs that are most popular are… the type of designs that tend to be most popular… with the type of people who like that sort of thing… thereby attracting more like-minded people… If you see what I mean. I don’t necessarily agree with this guy’s tirade against crowd-sourcing, but it’s an interesting point.

But here’s the thing: Graphic tees are really all about personal style, so everyone’s bound to seek out something different. As I said, it’s all a matter of personal taste. So check out Threadless and see if something fits you.

The size is definitely right.

In other news, short-guy specialty retailer ForTheFit.com is running their Summer ‘09 sale now through the end of July. Check out their:

I wear a lot of kids clothes (Ages 10-12) as they seem to fit the best, but they don’t carry the styles, trends, and quality that I want.

I have recently been shopping in River Island and Topman in the UK for tops. But trousers are a total nightmare as even if I get the waist right, the crotch just hangs between my knees. I’ve tried some skinny styles with elastane in them which fit around the hips (that’s my main problem, no hips to hold them up), but they don’t look very smart tapered around the ankle. I have no problem having hemlines and sleeves taken up — it’s just finding any clothes that fit around my main body, hips, and legs.

I’d really like to wear some smarter styles — jackets, trousers, shirts — without looking too businessy, but not at the expense of being swathed in extra fabric. Any suggestions?

–Anonymous, UK

Does anyone have any ideas for this guy? He could really use our help. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be that much further out on the bell curve. He’s based in the UK, but I think any and all store/brand/alteration options should be explored, so please weigh in.

I think there are probably few if any true off-the-rack menswear options available for someone of his size. So he may need to keep thinking outside the box: children’s, women’s, and unisex clothes, alterations, and custom-made stuff. I have a few suggestions:

That’s all I got. What other options does someone his size have?

BR’s a dependable source for mid-priced office attire, so it’s great that they’ve expanded to include sizes for the shorter third of the US male population. And sort of surprising that it took them this long to tap into that market (given that Brother Gap has had XS for ages).

But… the XS sizes are only available online. Bah.

It sucks that their XS clothes aren’t carried in stores — especially because the issue of fit is all important for short men. And they don’t have the best return policy. You can return most (but not all) items in store. But if you need to ship something back to them, it’ll cost you. My feeling is that if you can only order something online, you should be able to return it for free (a la Zappos).

Bottom line for me is this: It’s nice that they’re making an effort. But there is no good reason that big chains like this can’t devote a little bit of floor space to us. Especially when you consider that every time you see a sale rack, it’s loaded down with larger sizes that they made too many of and can’t seem to move. You hardly ever see many smaller sizes on sale.

So if you’d like to see Banana Republic sell XS men’s clothing in its stores, tell them what you think. E-mail custserv@bananarepublic.com

Meanwhile…

Has anyone tried BR’s new XS size? What did you think?