Where to buy a custom-made men’s shirt
Now that a guy no longer needs a linebacker’s physique, a Rat Packer’s swagger or cartoon bags of money to justify the purchase of a made-to-measure dress shirt, here are a few local options — at different levels of wallet strain — worth exploring:
Anto Distinctive Shirtmaker
Anto has been a maker of truly custom shirts (along with neckties, robes, pajamas and boxer shorts – but no suits) for Tinseltown’s well-heeled for more than five decades. Clients have included Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Johnny Depp (at the recent Golden Globes) and Bradley Cooper (in “The Hangover Part II”). Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick put Anto’s shirts on Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin and Shia LaBeouf for “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”
Price: $325 per shirt, with a first-time minimum order of six shirts.
Made in: Sherman Oaks, using (to quote Jack Sepetjian, who runs the business with his brother, Ken) “the finest European cotton fabrics, finest mother-of-pearl buttons from Italy and thread from Germany.”
Turnaround time: First-time customers should expect the process to take four to five weeks. For existing customers, it’s usually a three-week turnaround. (But if you’ve got an awards-show red carpet on your calendar, as many Anto clients do, they can get it to you in a week.)
Anto Distinctive Shirtmaker at 258 N. Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills and 13300 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks.
J.Hilburn
With a nationwide direct-sales network of 1,000 “style advisors,” the 5-year-old company combines good, old-fashioned customer contact with the newest of newfangled technology to help guys solve their tailored-clothing conundrums. Co-founder Veeral Rathod envisions the day — he thinks in 2013 — when a guy can ask his smart-
phone what he should wear to the office or a wedding and it will serve up the clothing combination he and his style advisor had
discussed.
Price: $89 to $159 per shirt.
Made in: Fabrics are exclusively from Italian mills; shirts are cut and sewn in China.
Turnaround time: The Dallas-based company can get guys their goods in two weeks flat if they live in the great state of Texas. For the rest of the country it’s about 21/2 weeks.
Locate and contact a local style advisor via the J.Hilburn website.
Hong Kong Grand Custom Tailoring
One of the many peripatetic purveyors of tailored menswear that decamp to hotel suites in major cities every three or four months to meet clients, William Sani has been schlepping his swatch books and order pad from coast to coast for the last 35 years, with local stops that include Century City and Newport Beach.
Price: $299 to $1,190 for a six-shirt minimum package (a three-suit, eight-shirt package can be had for $1,599).
Made in: Hong Kong.
Turnaround time: Four to six weeks.
Hong Kong Grand Custom Tailoring returns to Century City on Feb. 17; see website for full schedule.
Note: Many of the bigger menswear retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Brooks Brothers and Nordstrom, offer men’s dress shirts with various levels of personalization. It’s not true custom clothing, but it can be a good option for the sartorial standout in training. And of course there’s a burgeoning number of online made-to-order options.
