I’ll never forget when my friend Carlos let me take him shopping for the first time. He and I had been lifting weights together for around six months, and I listened him complain about how nothing would fit his thighs one too many times. “Fine,” I said exasperatedly. “Just let ME try to help you, for the love of God.” Carlos has shoulders and legs like a competitive powerlifter and a waist half the size of his thighs. As you might imagine, shopping off the rack was his purgatory.
We went to three department stores, hit up five specialty shops, and spent most of a Saturday before we found him one pair of pants that didn’t either gap horribly at the waist or balloon dangerously on his quads. When he finally found a pair of pants that fit him well, he bought them in every color they came in like the pants-hoarding squirrel that he is. I’ve never cried so much over khakis.
The secret that no one wants to talk about is that, in America – the most physically diverse country in the world – there are virtually no ready retail clothing options that are designed for anyone other than a mythical “average” guy with proportional dimensions that are nearly identical to a female Levi’s fit model from 1978. If you’re taller than 6’4”, shorter than 5’7”, barrel-chested like Tarzan, thin as a rail, super athletic, wildly obese, have narrow shoulders and wide hips…or any other permutation in between – we’ve all been forced to make compromises our whole lives.
Shopping for clothes should not be punishment for having a body that deviates from retail’s invisible BMI-scale-carving norm.
And while there’s only so much that brands can do until the average American becomes a lot more diverse in terms of size and shape (hint: hiring more than three fit models of varying shapes wouldn’t hurt), there are plenty of work-arounds and strategies that we can employ today to look and feel better. So whether you’re built like Grezzo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Tyson Beckford on a bad hair day, I’ve spent years collecting work-arounds, hacks, and actual solutions to help you too. My friend Mike just barely breaks the 6’7” mark.
His arms are so long that he wears his sleeves tucked into his gloves so that he can reach his shirt buttons. For years, Mike bought XXL shirts so that he could get enough length in the sleeves. But he’d then be drowning in gigantic shirt sizes meant for guys with his torso measurements but half his waist. “I looked like I was wearing a damn parachute everywhere I went,” Mike said to me over drinks the other night. “I just kind of gave up and stopped expecting clothes to fit.” Until about a year ago when he discovered made-to-measure shirts.
He’s not talking crazy bespoke suits that require a menswear consultant flying out to your house to take your measurements either. There are now plenty of affordable MTM options out there – from companies like Proper Cloth and Spier & Mackay – that will make you a shirt for about $100-150. Not great, but certainly not much more than what you’d spend on something quality off the rack.
Sure enough, Mike ordered his first MTM shirt. He texted me a selfie in the bathroom mirror after he tried it on with more glee than a grown man has any business expressing about a piece of clothing. “THIS,” he wrote, “is what other people feel like in clothes all the time.” For the extremely athletic like Carlos there’s actually been a revolution in clothes that are designed to fit you if…you actually have some muscle on your frame. Brands like Peter Manning make amazing clothing specifically for guys under 5’8”.
Brands like Left Field NYC make American-made jeans with athletic cuts that fit big thighs without assuming you have an equally huge waist. There are brands like Bonobos that essentially built their whole business on boxer-friendly pants. Hell, there are options.
For bigger guys, the big-and-tall industry has come a long way too. It still has a long way to go. But it’s come a long way. “Big-and-tall used to mean big OR tall,” my fat friend James complained to me the other day. (He’s 6’4” and 260 pounds, FWIW.) “It was either sized that would fit your length but nowhere near your width, or wide enough but would literally cut off at your calves.” Thankfully brands like DXL are finally recognizing that there are dudes out there who are BOTH big AND tall.
And fitting us normal-looking humans. This all starts with understanding that there are workarounds. Sure, your options aren’t quite as wide-open as the next guy’s might be.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions. But make no mistake: Even once you start buying from brands with your shape in mind, you’re still going to have to spend money on a good tailor. If you’ve read my column for any length of time, you’ve probably think I work for the Tailors’ Guild or something.
But hear me out on this: If you want to consistently look good in clothing – even when you have what the fashion industry deems “problem areas” – nothing is more important than having a good tailor you like working with. I’ve been going to the same woman to alter my clothes for almost a decade. Her name is Elena, and she’s tiny Ukrainian grandma who will happily insult both your English and your fashion sense if you insult her clothing with something that doesn’t fit properly.
She’s also literal superhero when it comes to saving ill-fitting garments. If you’re not using a tailor, drop everything you’re doing right now and find yourself a good one. Your clothes, and your wallets will thank you.
Shoulders used to be one area people told me was impossible to alter. And while it is more difficult than altering anything else on a garment, it can absolutely be done. Just know that it’s going to cost you, and it may not be worth it if you’re only looking to wear a jacket for a few months.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS ALTERABLE. Your waist can almost always be taken in or let out. Pants can be tapered, hemmed, sometimes even lengthened if there’s enough fabric.
Jacket sleeves and jacket bodies can be let up or shortened. Dress shirt collars can literally be replaced with new ones. My super-rack’d friend Ryan basically has this as his buying suit algorithm: He finds something that fits perfectly in the shoulders and chest, ignores how oversized the jacket is everywhere else, and heads straight to the tailor.
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Once Ryan’s clothes get to Elena, they magically become suits that fit him like they were made for him. It’s crazy. If you’ve never been to a REAL tailor with experience altering clothes on people with your…distinctive shape, stop reading this.
Go find one. You’ll never look back. Depending on the item of clothing and how long you plan on keeping it, some alterations are almost always worth it.
Pants being hemmed is $15-$20 and worth every penny. Having your pants tapered from the knee down is another $25-$30, but can make all the difference to the overall silhouette of your outfit. Jackets can be taken in at the waist for $50-75 and instantly go from looking like something your dad wore in the ‘90s to modern and fitted.
If you spend the extra cash on something nicer and plan on keeping it for a while, even more alterations are worth it. I recently dropped $120 altering a $300 sport coat. It sounds insane but hear me out.
But with those alterations, that Jacket – which previously didn’t fit me at all – now fits me perfectly and looks like a jacket that costs four times as much. It’s been worn well over 50 times in the past year alone. Factor in the number of times that Jacket has been worn, and that $120 tailoring cost me less than five bucks per use.
Oh, and did I mention that if I went out and bought a new men’s jacket today that was made exactly for my measurements from a quality MTM company…it would cost me over $800? Think about that next time you’re debating whether or not something is worth tailoring. Figure out which brands use which fit models.
American brands tend to run bigger and fuller overall than European brands does. Do your homework. Some brands like Banana Republic even sell the exact same suit in multiple fits.
Their Mason fit is great for athletic guys while their Fulton fit is slim and modern. Japanese brands tend to run smaller through the chest but have disproportionately longer sleeves than their American counterparts which can actually work well for some guys. Online made-to-measure is truly changing the landscape of custom clothes.
What used to be a rich guys-only club is now attainable for everyday dudes like us who are willing to take the time to measure ourselves correctly and pay maybe 30% more than we would at the mall. Brands like Indochino, Black Lapel, and even SuitSupply’s made-to-measure offering have made customized clothing almost mainstream. Find brands that work for YOUR body type and just stick with them.
My buddy Dave is 5’8”, not overweight, but has a great deal of muscle on his frame. He’s basically given up on shopping for clothes that aren’t Peter Manning. “Are they THE brand?” he asked me over text when I was writing this section. “No. But do I look like I’m wearing boyscout uniforms anymore?
Yes. I’ll take that trade-off.” Buy hacks when you need to. Collar extenders can give you some extra length on dress shirts.
Pants with adjustable waistbands or side tabs can accommodate weight gain or loss. Magnetic shirt stays are little magnets you sew into your dress shirt that allow you to keep it tucked no matter what (holy shit game changer if you have a short torso). The most important change in my menswear education over the last eight years isn’t just that there are more options for people with non-average bodies…it’s that men are finally comfortable admitting they have fit problems.
I can’t tell you how many guys would have previously suffered in silence wearing overly tight pants or too-short sleeves instead of actually doing something about it. But now guys are reading reviews online, watching YouTube videos on alterations, discussing their issues with other guys.
It’s created enough market demand for these types of products that brands are finally starting to listen.
I get emails all the time from readers who think they might be alone in the world for having “weird” bodies that don’t fit into off-the-rack clothes. Let me save you the anxiety of finding out: You are not alone. Unless you were born a Kardashian, there’s a very good chance your body doesn’t adhere perfectly to retailers’ idea of “the average American.” Notions of what an “average” American should look like have shifted drastically over the years, but that doesn’t change the fact that fewer than one million women have ever modeled jeans or dress shirts for the brands you buy.
You’re not weird for having a neck that’s too big for most men’s shirts. You’re not some sort of linebacker mutant because you have a 20” waist and 34” hips. It’s called being HUMAN.
Learn to love alterations as part of the process of buying clothes. Find brands that generally fit your body shape best and stop punish yourself every time you try something on that doesn’t fit off the rack. It isn’t you, it’s THEM.
And when you DO find something that fits, buy extras while you can. Carlos is not alone.
