The first step in choosing your custom fit tailored dress shirt is to select a color and style of shirt. If you are a more conservative dresser or work in a strict office environment, traditional colors such as light blue and white will be your best bet. Typically conservative dress shirts are solid in color as well: no stripes or patterns. A standard collar will also be preferred.
If you are looking to be a bit more stylish with your shirt, you might consider a brighter color. Spread collars, which are wider at the bottom than standard collars, are also in fashion, especially for younger workers.
Ensuring Quality
When seeking a high quality dress shirt, there are a few things you want to check. First is the ply count. A high quality shirt will have a two ply count, and will have this information on the label. Lesser quality shirts will have only a one ply count, and this information will usually not be made available on the label. Two-ply fabric shirts are stronger, last longer, are softer and more comfortable and will wrinkle less than one-ply shirts.
Seams should also be checked. If the shirt is high quality, only a single line of stitching will be visible on the seam running down the side of the shirt. Most shirts have two lines of stitching on the side seam.
To ensure your custom fit tailored shirt is of high quality, check the stitching on the buttons. In a high quality shirt buttons will be sewn on with a cross-locked stitch to make it more difficult for them to fall off.
Checking the Fit
Once you have chosen the color and style of shirt that you want, it is time to check the fit. The primary areas which you need to examine when selecting a custom fit tailored dress shirt are the collar, arms and wrists.
When the shirt is on, you should be able to put two fingers between your neck and the collar. For a new shirt, the collar should actually be about half a size bigger than you need. It takes about 9 washings for a dress shirt to shrink to its smaller size. If you have selected to small a collar, it will choke you when you try to put it on after it has finished shrinking.
Shirt sleeves should be long enough so that when your arms are fully extended, the sleeves do not ride up your wrists. The cuffs should also be tight around your wrist so they do not slide down your hands when arms are not extended. If you are able to get your hands through the cuffs even if they are buttoned, then the cuffs are not tight enough.
While wearing your shirt it should feel comfortable across your entire body. Make sure that it doesn't get tight around shoulders, chest or waist. Check the buttons to make sure they are not too far apart leaving gaps and exposing your chest or waist.
Copyright (c) 2008 Wes Fernley
Finding good, high quality dress shirts is no small feat. A combination of good style as well as comfort, it can often be difficult to find just the right one. When you have a custom fit tailored dress shirt designed especially for you, it is even more important that you take good care of it to make sure that it lasts.
Washing Your Custom Fit Tailored Dress Shirt
When you first get your new custom fit tailored dress shirt, make sure you wash it before you wear it. Sometimes there will still be some various chemical residue on the material from the manufacturing process, washing it will remove these traces. It will also make the material softer and thus more comfortable to wear.
It is best to wash dress shirts by hand. If for some reason you are not able to wash your dress shirt by hand, then use lukewarm water in the washing machine on a gentle cycle.
Avoid dry cleaning for dress shirts, especially white ones. The chemicals used in the dry cleaning process can destroy the fabric in the shirt or even cause it to turn yellow. If you are going to give your dress shirt to a dry cleaner for washing, request that they have it laundered rather than dry cleaned.
When washing dress shirts, make sure to separate colored shirts from white shirts. If possible, also separate out your colored shirts into light colored shirts and darker colored shirts. This will prevent bleeding from occurring, which can permanently stain lighter colored and especially white shirts.
Ironing Your Dress Shirt
Ironing is very important in keeping your custom fit tailored dress shirt wrinkle free while wearing, but you should be careful when ironing your shirts. When ironing a shirt, make sure that it is slightly damp when using a hot iron. Doing this will prevent damage to the fabric. Using a steam iron will achieve the same result.
Start your ironing with the underside of the collar. You want to start from the pointed tips of the collar and move to the back of the neck area. Afterwards flip your shirt over and do the same for the front side of the collar.
Next go to the yoke of the shirt. Start at neck of the shirt and iron towards the center. If you have a pleated shirt, iron in the same direction as the fold so as not to ruin them.
Cuffs are to be ironed in a similar manner to the collars. Turn them inside out and start by ironing the underside, once again starting from the edges and moving towards the middle.
The last part of your dress shirt you are going to iron is going to be the torso. Starting from the top, work your way carefully from left to right and work your way down. Going from left panel to right panel will keep each part of the shirt equally ironed. Make sure to iron in between the buttons and not over them.