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MBA Style magazine Shirts

Rule One is that men can't go wrong by wearing a solid white, newly-pressed, long-sleeve, 100% cotton dress shirt to a job interview and at work. The strongest cotton shirt is made of single-ply oxford cloth, which stands up to decades of repeated washings. A single-needle stitched shirt will last longer, since it reduces fabric puckering.

If you're paying over $25,000 per year to attend graduate school, you should pay the extra dollars for a 100% cotton shirt. Bypass the 65/35 cotton/polyester blends for your interview. Those blends and Wrinkle-Resistant treatments can be purchased for work.

You should also press your shirt, because a wrinkled shirt will make a $1000 suit look like a $50 rag.

For those of you who are more daring, you can wear a variety of patterned dress shirts at interviews. Patterns include:
Stripes: Hairline, Pin, Pencil, Shadow, and Bengal Stripes;
Checks: Box, Tattersall, Miniature, and Pin Checks; and
White-on-White patterns.

There are 5 primary collar styles. They are:
buttondown collars, which date back to the turn of the century;
point collars, which have a spread of about 2.75 inches;
tab collars, in which the front collars are joined by a button or a snap tab;
spread collars, in which the collar spreads out over 3.5 inches; and
club collars, which have rounded points and are sometimes held together with a pin or bar.

Button down collars are the least formal, while spread collars are considered the most formal. Too large a knot in your necktie can unbalance a collar's design, producing a disproportionate look. For that reason, you should wear full or half windsors with nearly any collar, but a fat four-in-hand knot would unbalance at tab collar.
Speaking of fat, according to the Van Heusen company, if you have a wide face, you should wear a medium spread collar. Long faced MBA's should wear wide spread collars, and those of use who are average faced can get away with button-down collars. Rule of thumb... the longer your face, they wider the spread.

Full-cut shirts have standard chest and waist measurements, while fitted shirts have tapered waists. Athletic-fit shirts have about three inches of extra fabric across the chest and length, with slightly tapered waists. For example, Brigade shirts by Arrow for have two extra inches across the chest and one extra inch in the length (which is known as the 'yoke').

A dress shirt is a style of shirt that is sold by neck size and sleeve length, for example 16/35 which means a 16 inch neck and a 35 inch sleave. A sport shirt is sold by generic size, small, medium, large, and extra-large, no matter how dressy the shirt is. For example, Todd Killian's shirts are quite dressy, but they are actually sportshirts, since they are sold in sizes of small, medium, and large.

Solid white shirts comprise over 55% of dress shirt sales at retail, and total sales have been flat for the past few years. Sixty-four percent of dress shirts sold are in solid colors, so that would leave only 9 percent for non-white solids. Twenty-eight percent of shirts sold are in striped patterns. Last year, more than 75% of dress shirts were sold at discount, or promoted at discounted sale prices. This is up from 54% in 1992. Peter Corritori, president of a Philips Van Heusen division, says the magic retail price for shirts in 1993 was under 40 dollars. Unfortunately for retailers, he's right. Dress shirt volume growth has been at the lowest price points (under $20), and 46% of past dress shirt sales are done in the 20-29.99 dollars price range.

Last year, 29% of all dress shirts sold were 100% cotton, up from 14% in 1992. Forty-one percent of shirts sold in department stores were buttondowns, 35 percent were point collars, and 20 percent were spread collars. Spread volumes are expected to grow. Tab collar sales is flat at about 6 percent of sales.

The purchasing channel shares for shirts are expected to remain stable in 1996. Nearly 28 percent of all shirts are purchased from specialty retailers, and 13 percent are purchased from department stores. Just as department store gained two share points between 1992 and 1995, discount stores, with a 25 percent dollar share, are expected to pick up one or two share points in 1996.

There are a multitude of brands, but actually there are only a handful of manuafacturers. Bidermann manufactures Arrow, Brigade, Cluett Peabody, Yves St Laurent, and Bill Robinson shirts. Philips Van Heusen markets Van Heusen, and Bass. Salant manufactures Manhattan, Liberty of London, Gant, John Henry, Nino Cerruti, and Ron Chereskin shirts. Warnaco manufactures Hathaway; Supreme manufactures Albert Nipon, Adolfo, and Ruffini; and Oxford manufactures Robert Stock.

Photo credits: Van Heusen Corporation; Empire de l'ephemere by Gilles Lipovetsky; James Wojcik of NYC. Reprinted with permissions. They each reserve their rights.
Copyright © 1996 MBA Style magazine
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