Perfect Shirt Checklist - How To Buy An Amazing Looking Shirt
[0:00:00] The right shirt can make you look like a million
bucks.
The wrong shirt, it’s a waste of money.
In today’s video, guys, I’ve got you covered with the perfect shirt checklist with over
thirty items that you want to look at whenever you’re buying the right shirt for you.
[Music] First up, let’s talk about fit.
If a shirt doesn’t fit you, then do not wear it or get it adjusted to fit you.
So, what type of fit are you going for?
That’s the first thing.
Do you want a slim fit?
Do you want a regular fit?
Do you want a loose fit?
What’s right?
Well, it depends oftentimes on your body type.
If you’re a slimmer guy, you could go for a slim fit.
You’re a bigger guy, I would be careful with the slim fit because you just don’t
have as much room when you’re moving around.
Now, let’s talk about particular fit details.
So, when you button up the collar at the top, first up, it should button.
Then, you should be able to get about two fingers in there on the collar, that’s about
perfect.
If you can fit your entire hand in there, the collar is too large.
If when you button it up, it is choking you, it is too tight.
Then, let’s go over and let’s look at the shoulder width.
So, you want to make sure the shoulder points hit at your shoulder point.
If they’re going down the arm, it’s too large in the shoulders.
If they’re creeping up on the shoulders, it’s too small.
Next up, let’s talk about the fit in the torso area.
That’s going to include the chest, the stomach, and the hips.
So, I like to have about an inch-and-a-half of play in this area here, inch-and-a-half
to two inches.
I’m 165, 170 lbs, 5’9”.
Now, if you’re about 6’5”, 350 lbs, in this case, you’re going to want to give
yourself a bit more room, more like two-and-a-half inches to three inches.
It’s proportional.
Most shirts that you buy off the rack, they’re not going to fit you exactly right, so what
can you do?
Well, if it’s too tight, not much you can do.
It’s just not the right shirt for you.
But, if you’ve got a little bit too much play here, you can actually put darts in the
box in on the side and that could actually bring in the torso and make it fit better.
Now, I want to talk about one part of shirt that’s very difficult to adjust, in fact,
I think it’s worth going custom just for this one thing and that is going to be the
higher armhole and the smaller armhole.
A higher armhole, what it does is it gives you actually a lot more room to move with
your arms.
It gives you more freedom of movement.
The problem is is that a higher armhole means that it’s going to fit less body types.
So, most off the rack manufacturers they do not make shirts like this, you’ve got really
go custom to get a higher armhole.
And speaking of custom, guys, I want to let you know this shirt right here and all the
shirts you see behind me were made by Tailor Store, the paid sponsor of today’s video.
And, guys, for years I’ve been talking about this company because I absolutely love them
because first up, it’s about their perfect fit guarantee.
These guys guarantee that the shirt they make for you will fit you perfectly or you just
simply keep it and they remake it.
But, also, the choice of fabrics, you go to their website, they’ve got a wide range
of formal fabrics to casual fabrics to fun fabrics.
And, when it comes to customization, you can choose from the buttons to the stitching to
the contrast stitching to the collar types.
You have unlimited options when it comes to actually building out a shirt.
All right.
So, I know a lot of you guys are thinking, Antonio, I don’t want to take my measurements.
I am too lazy to get custom.
Guys, Tailor Store has made it easy, all you have to do is go to the app store or Google
Play, grab Tailor Store Size Me app.
You download it and, boom!
This thing within sixty seconds is going to grab the information it needs from you and
this is how it works.
So, the first thing, guys, is you place you device against the wall.
You got to lined it up just right and then all of a sudden, you take a step back and
it takes a picture of you.
You then, enter your height you enter your weight and, boom!
That is it, that’s all the device needs to actually be able to measure you for the
perfect fitted shirt.
And I am proud to bring these guys to you with an amazing discount, guys, 40% off your
first shirt.
I’m linking to Tailor Store down in the description and if you’re a returning customer,
they’ve got a great deal for you too, guys.
But, I’m putting those links down in the description.
You can use them to get the perfect shirt for you.
Next up, let’s talk about sleeve length.
I like it so when I put my arms up, it just barely comes off of my wrist.
I want it to be comfortable when I’m driving, but really I like it when my hands are down
and I don’t have any bunching up.
Next up, let’s talk about the length of the shirt.
You want the shirt when you tuck it into your pants if it’s only half an inch, it’s
going to come untuck all day and not much you can do about that.
If it goes beyond two to three inches, I actually don’t think that’s a problem.
I would prefer my shirts to be a bit longer.
I simply find that a longer shirt is actually going to stay in better.
Next up, let’s talk about shirt cuff fit.
So, the rule here is that you should have to unbutton the shirt cuff in order to be
able to take it off.
And whenever you button it, it should fit snug enough, but not so tight, you know, that
it’s uncomfortable, but snug enough that you won’t be able to slip it off without
actually unbuttoning it.
Now, if you wear a watch like on your left hand, the way you want to make sure is it
actually on that side, you give yourself maybe an extra half inch, three-quarters of an inch
so the shirt cuff can go and cover the watch, no problem.
Next up, let’s talk about sleeve width.
So, this is how much excess fabric or lack of excess fabric you have right here in the
sleeve.
So, if it’s a custom job, you don’t have to worry about it, but if it’s something
off the rack and you really adjusted that torso brought it in quite a bit, know that
you’re probably going to have to bring in the sleeves just a bit and get rid of some
of that excess fabric here.
[0:05:04] Now, I’m going to wrap up the fit by talking
about proportions.
And proportions oftentimes apply to the collar and they apply to the cuff.
And this is something for a lot of manufacturers they reuse the same cuffs and the same collars
for all of their shirts no matter if the guy is 5’2” 100 lbs or he’s 7’2” 350
lbs.
Pay attention to that overall collar size.
If you put it on and it just doesn’t look right, then avoid the shirt.
When you’re getting something custom, they should pay attention to those small details.
So, next up let’s talk about fabrics.
This shirt right here, the classic white dress shirt.
We’ve seen this before.
This is going to be the most formal of shirts out there.
But, what happens when you start to bring in small repeating patterns?
Well, the shirt becomes less formal, we start to move down.
When you start to bring in a stripe, you can see the fabric all of a sudden starts to affect
the formality.
Right over here, again, we’ve got a stripe, but it’s got a bold red, so it becomes less
formal.
We’ve got this a small dot repeating on a dark background becomes, again, more casual.
Then, we’ve got a linen shirt, even though it’s solid, it’s made from a linen fabric.
And as we move farther to casual, you can see the patterns become bolder they become
stronger they start to use all different types of patterns all different types of colors
grabbing a lot of attention.
So, we quickly talked about fabric colors and patterns, but let’s talk about weight.
I find heavier weight fabrics can actually retain their form a bit longer obviously work
for cooler temperatures.
But, lighter weight they are so nice during the summer whenever you need something that’s
breathable.
So, it really depends on the situation, but when you’re looking for the perfect shirt,
make sure to look at the weight and the weave of the fabric.
The weave of the fabric, what does that mean?
Well, the weave of the fabric is how the yarns were actually sewn together.
And that can have a huge effect on the breathability, it can have a huge effect on the overall look
and that pattern.
So, this right here this is a classic twill fabric.
A twill fabric is actually it’s going to have little bit of a pattern you can see in
it, but is a very densely tightly woven.
It gives a bit of a sheen.
This right here, this is a broadcloth type of weave.
Broadcloth is going to have a heavier kind of like a more dull look to it, so that works
great whenever you want just something that’s going to be maybe a nice button-down more
of a work shirt.
Now, this right here, notice it has a bit of a sheen, so this right here is going to
have a poplin weave.
It’s a very tight very nice weave gives a very nice light feel for dress shirts.
Now, right here, again, we’ve got a very simple basket weave.
It’s great in this case we’re using linen, so the shirt as – I can almost see through
it, it’s a very lightweight shirt very breathable.
Let’s talk about fabric types.
Cotton is going to be the most common fabric out there.
I love cotton because it’s durable, it’s tough.
This is something that you can get dirty you can wash multiple times.
Literally a great cotton shirt you can run to the wash and even the dryer fifty to a
hundred times depending on the quality.
Now, you’re going to start to see blends come in as well.
Now, blends are sometimes going to give a bit of stretch and I don’t think it’s
bad to actually bring some synthetic material in, the problem with synthetic materials though
is that it really can’t stand up to heat.
All of a sudden you put iron on it, if it’s too hot, it’s actually going to melt the
material, so that you have to be really careful with that.
Now, you heard me mention linen.
This shirt over here is made from linen, it’s a great summer shirt, very breathable, great
for hot weather.
The problem with linen is it wrinkles easily, so make sure that you don’t get it for your
most formal shirts, it’s going to be more for your casual hot weather shirts.
All right.
So now, let’s talk about shirt styles for the perfect dress shirts.
Again, depends on what you need.
First thing is let’s look at the collar.
The collar, one of the most important style details on a shirt because it frames the face.
What you want to look for here is actually going to be the length of the collar point
and the spread of the collar point.
These two things right here depending on if there’s a wide spread if it’s a narrow
spread if it’s a long point or it’s a short point, this is going to have a huge
effect on the overall look of the collar.
Then, you have the classic business collar and this is actually made to be worn with
a tie.
Most off the rack dress shirts are going to have this, but you may notice in most of my
videos, I actually have a spread collar.
And the reason I go for a spread collar is I’m not always wearing a necktie.
The button-down collar is a casual style.
You can wear this with a casual shirt, but don’t put it on a dress shirt.
And, with your dress shirts, you want to make sure underneath that they could actually take
collar stays, collar stays are going to be metal or plastic pieces that go in here to
actually keep the collar points nice and crisp.
Your shirt collar can make or break the shirt.
Make sure you find the style that suits you that actually fits your particular needs.
Next up, let’s talk about shirt cuff style.
So, right here, I’ve got a classic barrel cuff.
The other type of shirt cuffs that you’re going to see are the French cuff.
The French cuff is the folded cuff that it’s going to be where there’s two layers of
material and a cufflink is needed.
One of my favorites though is the two-button cuff, but I love the look of this, I’ve
got it with a number of my shirts and for me, it simply screams custom without screaming
custom.
And, while we’re talking about buttons, let’s talk about button types.
So, the nicest buttons you’re going to see out there in my opinion are Mother of Pearl.
Mother of Pearl are going to be very thin, they’re going to be very tough.
Plastic buttons started to make their way in and they were cheaper and so, plastic buttons
now have pretty much replaced Mother of Pearl.
I’m not saying anything is bad with plastic.
Plastic is easy to find, it comes with a wide variety of different colors, but Mother of
Pearl for me on a dress shirt, ooh, it just can’t be beaten.
[0:10:15] And, while we’re talking about buttons,
let’s talk about contrast buttons and contrast stitching.
It depends on what you’re looking for like on a dress shirt a simple white dress shirt,
you don’t want to go for a contrast.
But, for casual shirt the one that you want to stand out, be a little bit different, I
think a contrasting button looks great.
Now, you can also do that with contrast stitching.
Usually, it’s going to be on the buttons or it’s going to actually be on the buttonholes.
Next up, let’s talk about pockets.
You’ll notice I have no pockets on most of my shirts and that’s on purpose.
I like the sleek overall look.
But, you can have pockets, they’re going to make the shirt oftentimes more casual especially
if they’ve got buttons if they’ve got, you know, a flap on them that’s going to
make it really casual.
But, if you’re not going to use the pocket, consider actually going for a shirt with no
pockets.
Now, on the back of your shirt you’re going to see options for pleats, you’re going
to see the box pleat, you’re going to see the two double-sided pleat, and you’re going
to see no pleats.
Me with my shirts, I like to go with no pleats because, again, most of them are going to
be custom, but if you’re looking at shirts out there, understand that the box pleat or
the double-sided pleat, it just simply there to give you a bit more room.
Next up, let’s talk about the quality of the build, the attention to detail.
The first thing I’m going to do is look in on the collar.
An extra strip of fabric was sewn right here around the band of the neck.
So, this build right here, they actually reinforcing it, very good thing right here.
Next, I’m looking at the stitches per inch.
I want to see at least eight stitches per inch about twelve stitches per inch, very
good.
I see extra buttons right here, an extra front button, extra gauntlet button.
Very well-built.
Those are the things you want to look for because if they paid attention to the inside
of the shirt, you can bet that they paid attention to everything else.
Now, let’s talk monograms.
A lot of people like them because it makes the shirts standout.
They’re going to put it on the collar, they’re going to put in on their cuff.
The monogram historically actually was just in the front of the shirt just right, you
know, at the very bottom of the shirt.
It wasn’t something that most people never saw.
And for me, if I’m going to have a monogram, that’s probably where I’m going to put
it.
All right, guys, what do you think a lot of information?
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered down in the description of this video.
I’ve got the complete checklist that you can just print off and you can use this wherever
you’re at to buy the perfect shirt.
And if you need help designing a perfect shirt online, I’ve got you covered with this video
right here, how to design the perfect shirt online.
And, guys, don’t forget Tailor Store, the paid sponsor of today’s video.
I’m linking to them down in the description with an awesome discount code, so you can
get 40% off.
Their app their Size Me app makes it so easy to take your measurements.
Literally within sixty seconds, you can actually have everything you need to actually build
out a custom shirt beautiful shirts.
I’m proud to support them.
Guys, that’s it.
Take care.
I will see you in the next video.
[0:12:46] End of Audio