Cheap tailor made work shirts online – are they worth the cost?
September 5th, 2011 Posted in review, tips | No Comments »You can get tailor made shirts as low as €38 (270kr) online (e.g. at tailor4less) but the question is whether they are worth it. I’ve been so lucky to have been given a coupon for a free shirt from tailor4less provided I wrote about my experience – so here it is!
Ordering and design options
Ordering was painless and it’s definitely not what you should be afraid of when ordering. It was easy to navigate the menus on the site and choose the design options I wanted. Unfortunately, the tailor4less only shows an outline of the shirts you are designing, so you can not keep up visually with the how shirt will look (which can be a problem if one chooses the more advanced design options such as contrast threads and fabrics, colored buttonholes and seams. Here sites like tailorstore and youtailor easier as they show a mockup of the shirt as you design it (works great!).
Wrt. the design options, they are not so many you can tailor to your personal preference, but the most important (cuff, collar (though not so many options as other dealers), cuff style, back style, bottom cut, the number of pockets and embroidery of initials) are there.
Tailor4less, offers a really cool design option that I have not seen offered before – contrasting thread for the buttonhole and only having contrast threading and seams cufflinks button holes – very sexy (why I did not choose it on the shirt I ordered I don’t know, but maybe I go for this one to the next shirt)! If they also had the option so you could do it in the bottom button on the front of the shirt I’d be in heaven!
Another thing that was make it easy to get start was that you have the opportunity to make a semi-tailored shirt by indicating your body shape based on some pictures as well as age, height and weight. It will not be quite as precise as when you measure directly as I did, but it makes it easier to get started with getting your first shirt (and takes no time at all!). I got my wife to measure me and it went quickly and painlessly (did I mention the fit is excellent).
Something I have not tried myself of, but which sounds are exceptionally tailor4less’s customer service. In the unlikely event that you are not satisfied with the fit (note: YOU did the measurements yourself), you can can any tailor in your country to fix it and send the bill to tailor4less.com (max €35/piece though). Or you can send it back to tailor4less with a message about required changes and they will do the changes for free! Nice nice nice feature!
Delivery time is fantastic (mine came from China in around a week’s time compared the promised 2 weeks). Here tailorstore etc. could really learn something (I recall 4 or 8 weeks when ordering form them)!
Also a nice touch. The package was surrounded by a red ribbon when it arrived, giving a good first impression! It’s nice when there’s an eye for the small details, as you autoamatically think the attention to detail also relates to the shirt itself.
Shirt Quality
Unfortunately, trees grow not into the sky, and the quality is shirt fabricsc offered is not as good as I’m used to from custom shirts. Default fabrics are single won 50ply. The comfort of two-ply yarn is higher and it’s a shame they do not offer it.
They do offer “luxury fabrics” in 80ply. Unfortunately 80ply (€12 extra) is not luxury, I think, and should be standard. Note that the rack-shirts from e.g. sumisura.com (which is the best rack-shirts are available) are two-ply cotton 120ply in Egypisk to approx. € 50) – Also, beware about what fabric you order as if you do not look around on tailor4less so you end up with a fabric that also contains polyester (avoid polyester shirts like the plague!).
The fit of the shirt I got is very good (though it is due to tailor4less or my wife’s measurement abilities will be uncertain, but I give the points to tailor4less), but because it is only in single won 50ply I fear for the fit after being washed a few times! However, I will enjoy wearing it until it happens (if it ever happens). So far it f****** looks good! My wife said, unsolicited, ”you look thinner than usual” when I wore it the first time.
I’m a little sad that the monogram/initials I had sewn into the cuff is so prominent as it is. There should be an option where they match the thread with the shirt fabric so it’s more descreet.
Conclusion
All in all, this is a good alternative tailor4less.com my ongoing favorite for custom made shirts, tailorstore.dk. The shirts with tailor4less costs approx. half and fit very well, but fabrics are a little worse than other places (and worse, there are significantly fewer fabrics to choose from). Additionally, there are more design options at tailorstore or youtailor so custom fit your shirts or suits. It would be nice if tailor4less had some better fabrics or just more quality fabrics, but then the price would probably also hike upwards. But buying at tailor4less can easily be recommended I have to say!
Shirts from € 38 from tailor4less.com (mine cost € 50)
The above was the headline of an email I got this morning and is currently my favorite email received in September. DSB public train system has for the last couple of month had TVs running in most their trains…WITH sound…. Yep, so going by train in the Copenhagen area meant that you were force-fed with news, cooking recipes and ads to pay for it all, with loud sound, with basically no way of avoiding it (unless you went into one of the quiet compartments).
