an approach to managing your shirt wardrobe

By Jason Proe ⋅ August 9, 2007 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅ Post a comment

photo by dps

Now that I have been working for a while, I have accumulated a fairly significant collection of dress shirts. My shirts fall into two categories. I have “dress” shirts and I have “work” shirts. My collection of “dress” shirts includes offerings from Zegna, Thomas Pink, Brooks Brothers and Charles Thyrtt. When I began building my wardrobe, I tried only to buy very high quality. This led to two problems. First, I had a very small rotation of shirts to wear to work and/or other functions. Second, because my rotation was small, my shirts took a beating due to work related incidents like coffee spills, ink stains, and snags caused by office furniture, etc.

After spending a lot of money on quality shirts only to see them irreparably damaged by the rigors of work, I instituted my current system. I try and visit my neighborhood “off-price” retailer (in my area that’s either Marshalls or TJ Maxx) once every couple of months. There, I can buy decent name-brand shirts anywhere from $20-$50. Some of the names I have been able to buy include Polo, Nautica, an Joseph Abboud. I try to spend about $30 on each shirt I buy, which enables me to buy “in bulk.” These shirts become my “work” shirts.

Now, I still mix in an occasional “dress” shirt, but the “work” shirts carry most of the load during the week. This frees me up to pull out the “dress” shirts for power meetings and special occasions. The good thing about wearing my less expensive shirts to work on a regular basis is that I don’t care if they get messed up. One disadvantage is that the fit of my “work” shirts is noticeably poorer than my “dress” shirts. Most of my “dress” shirts are a bit slimmer which gives me a nice tailored look. In contrast, a few of my “work” shirts balloon out at the waist adding about 10lbs and making me look like I have no idea how to tuck my shirt in.

After visiting a tailor last week to get some pants hemmed, I learned that he could make alterations to my shirts that would remedy this problem for $15 a shirt. My plan is to have a few of my favorite “work” shirts taken in. My hope is that this will result in having decent custom fit “work” shirts for a total investment of about $50 a shirt. I still periodically add to my “dress” shirt collection, but until I can completely transition, I think this provides me with a nice intermediate solution.

If you have any tips you would like to share about building and managing a business wardrobe let’s hear about them in the comments! - IM

Tags: style