There are many details and choices to consider once you decide to move forward and start down the path to making custom shirts. If you’re interested in a general review of Proper Cloth (including how to create your size), you can read it here. If you came from that article and have chosen to go down the custom shirt path, then contrats! I hope this article will give you all the ideas, recommendations, and confidence to create your first shirt and hopefully many shirts after.
Casual vs. Business
Your first decision is; do you want a casual shirt, a business casual/dress shirt, or both? Once you commit to starting the custom shirt process you need to decide what kind of situation you intend to create the shirt to fit. Personally, I have created a “casual” shirt fit and a “business” shirt fit. The main distinctions between the two are how long the shirt is and how wide the midsection is. For casual shirts, I use a shorter length and a wider midsection, where on business shirts I have a longer length and a slightly smaller midsection, so the shirt can tuck in without bunching as much. This creates a clean look when tucked in and avoids the dreaded “parachute” look. This also helps with shirts fitting under a slimmer-fit sweater. Your other choice is to make an in-between fit that can work pretty well in both situations.
Business Shirts
Once you have decided on your fit, you need to decide material, color, pattern or solid, collar, and buttons. Luckily, Proper Cloth has already created an entire section devoted to business-appropriate shirts here. If you only want to dip your toes into custom shirts, you can take all the preset selections from any of the shirts in the link and almost all will work well. Some additional useful guidelines for making your choices are:
- Solid colors are more formal than patterns in general (until you get into dark solids)
- The larger the size of the pattern, the more casual the shirt becomes
- Stay away from mid/dark blues, mid/dark greys and black/charcoal unless you work in a more create field
- If you have a pale skin tone, a light blue will look better with your complexion than a solid white
- Avoid contrast collars and cuffs (white collar and cuffs on a blue shirt) for now
- Stay away from dark buttons
- Stick with button cuffs
- If the name has the word Linen somewhere, it is specifically made for the Spring/Summer
If you like the look of a shirt, you can go to its detail page by clicking on it once, then clicking the Customize button right under the Add to Cart button.
Collar Options
For business and business casual shirts, the main four collar styles that are most appropriate are: Semi Spread, English Spread, Londoner, and Presidential Button Down. The choice between these four collars is mostly personal preference, though the Londoner is a bit more bold than the other three, and button down collars tend to be more of an East Coast thing than West Coast. You can see all four below. You also have the option of browsing all of Proper Cloth’s collars here.
Cuff Options
For business and business casual, just stick to the Long One Button.
Front Pocket Options
My personal preference is for no pockets, but one pocket is also perfectly acceptable, all the other options are for more casual shirts.
Front Placket Options (the thin vertical strip you button the buttons into)
Stick with their standard Front Placket.
Yoke Options (upper back of the shirt)
Stick with the Split Yoke.
Hem Options (how the very bottom of the shirt ends)
Stick with the Rounded Hem.
Button Options
Business appropriate choices are: Standard, Roma, and Mother of Pearl (MOP). If you want to go a bit “extra”, the Tall Mother of Pearl or Australian MOP will make a noticeable difference while still keeping the shirt within the business/business casual realm. I use Roma as my default button, but all of these choices are about the same level of formality, and it’s really just personal preference.
Monogram Options
I don’t monogram my shirts, but if you want to add your initials, the most subtle to most noticeable scale goes:
Back Inside of Collar/Left Shirt Tail – Most subtle
Left Center Cuff/Right Center Cuff – Noticeable to someone with a discerning eye
Left Stomach/Left Chest – Very obvious when not wearing a sportcoat
Fabric Accents
Skip fabric accents on business shirts.
Casual Shirts
After you have decided on the fit of the shirt, your next decision is the fabric. Casual shirts can run the gamut of fabric, so to choose the proper fabric, you need to decide if your shirt will be worn year round, just Fall/Winter, or just Spring/Summer. Once you narrow down your scope, you can choose the appropriate fabric. See the breakdown below:
- Fall/Winter only – Flannel, and low-count Twills
- Spring/Summer only – Linen, Linen/Cotton Blend, Seersucker and Madras
- All Season – all other fabric options
You can view all of Proper Cloth’s current fabrics here.
Pro Tip: If you would rather avoid scrolling and sorting through fabrics once you have made your choice, Proper Cloth has a filtering section on the left side where you can select All-Season, Summer, or Winter. They also provide a number of additional filtering options to hone in on exactly the type of fabric you’re after. My personal favorite fabric types are:
Flannel – for Fall/Winter these are generally unbeatable, having a soft and thick fabric is perfect for chilly afternoons/nights and they also pair well with vests.
Linen/Cotton Blend – 100% Linen wrinkles very quickly, it’s great for a very casual Summer shirt, but generally getting linen/cotton blended reduces the wrinkle-prone-ness while upping the formality slightly. This also provides the benefit of wearing it as a business casual shirt if necessary.
Seersucker – The puckering of the fabric in seersucker is it’s main attraction and I’ve found it also wears cooler than linen generally. It’s hard to find it in more than a couple colors, but it’s a great addition to any Spring/Summer wardrobe.
Collar Options
All of the business collars from above work as casual collars, but if you want to go with something with a tad more flair, the two I would recommend are the Soft Ivy Button Down collar or the Soft President Cutaway collar.
I wouldn’t recommend either of these collars with a tie, strictly to wear with an open neck. Both are “soft collars” which means they don’t use fusing during the construction of the collar. This makes them a bit less “crisp” looking and lends a more casual look to match the more casual fabric options you’re choosing from.
Cuff Options
For casual shirts the Soft One Button cuff option best matches the other casual aspects of a casual shirt.
Front Pocket Options
My personal preference is for no pockets, but one pocket is also perfectly acceptable, but technically you could choose any front pocket options.
Front Placket Options (the thin vertical strip you button the buttons into)
For casual shirts you can use the default Front Placket, but I would recommend choosing the Soft Front Placket or No Placket. No Placket looks especially good on casual linen shirts.
Yoke Options (upper back of the shirt)
Stick with the Split Yoke.
Hem Options (how the very bottom of the shirt ends)
Stick with the Rounded Hem, unless you’re designing a polo shirt.
Button Options
All of the button choices are available when creating a casual shirt, but if you want to keep it simple, I’d still recommend the Business Shirt buttons selections from above.
However, for Fall/Winter shirts I do like the colored horn buttons (I usually go with Brown) on darker colored flannels. For Spring/Summer you could also go with the Coconut Shell or Natural Corozo depending on the lightness or darkness of the fabric you select.
The main thing you want to keep in mind is, keeping the button color somewhat close in shade to the color of your shirt. Light colored shirts should have light colored buttons, dark colored shirts can also have light colored buttons (because light colored buttons are acceptable for all shirts), but a darker button can be a great alternate choice.
Monogram Options
I don’t monogram my shirts, but if you want to add your initials, the most subtle to most noticeable scale goes:
Back Inside of Collar/Left Shirt Tail – Most subtle
Left Center Cuff/Right Center Cuff – Noticeable to someone with a discerning eye
Left Stomach/Left Chest – Very obvious when not wearing a sportcoat
Fabric Accents
I don’t use fabric accents on casual shirts, but you can add a different fabric on the inside of the collar only you can see, or add a different fabric under your cuff, so when you flip your cuffs up, a different but complementary fabric will show. This style was popularized by and still used by Robert Graham, so If you like his style you could try and replicate it.
That wraps up all the options on a Proper Cloth custom shirt. If you have any additional questions or comments don’t hesitate to ask in the comments!
