I’ve got a 29" waist and wear a 37" jacket. I’m way slimmer in the middle than I am up top, and need shirts that taper inwards towards the middle. Everybody’s shirts go straight down from shoulder to waist, and make me look weird. Not just in button-ups, but in t-shirts and henleys and all manner of tops. I wear a small, for what it’s worth.
Also, who the hell sells pants in a 29" waist? I would love to wear Levi’s 511s, but the leg is just way too skinny for me. I need a “slim” leg, not a skinny leg.
I’ve found that Express generally fits me well, but I’m going to start looking like an Express billboard if I don’t find somewhere else to shop. Help?
Have you considered going someplace like Men’s Wearhouse for button-ups? Ask about an athletic cut. (That’s also the word for for “big jacket, non-portly,” like guys with big shoulders and normal sized waists would wear, but you’re in no danger of confusing them there.)
You’d probably do well with things that are called “vintage fit,” which tend to be designed to fit a little tighter and would probably fit you like a normal shirt.
Make a tailor your friend.
An ex was built somewhat like you - with a 40" chest, 30" waist, and 38" inseam.
Finding clothes was hell. He would spend a little more on dress shirts, then spend another $10ish to have it tailored. By buying a higher quality shirt it would last longer, and would make the money spent on tailoring worth it.
WRT T-shirts and the like, he was quite tall too, so he’d hit the big-n-tall stores where they would special order medium/tall (you could always find large/tall) and he’d buy a years’ worth at a time.
For jeans, though, well, he took to wearing workboots often to hide the waves coming in. He did have some Levi’s, but back then it was almost impossible to find that length.
Buying suits at places that sell separates is a necessity. Brooks Brothers comes to mind, but there are surely other places.
“European” cuts are better than american cuts. The Mossimo stuff at Target has a nice slim cut. I’d agree that tailoring shirts at the waist is pretty cheap and the kind of thing that you can trust a good dry-cleaner to do. In fact, that’s generally what I do- I’ll buy at a discount between seasons and then spend the money to tailor. The results are much better than expensive clothes off the rack.
I’m in something of the same boat; regular shirts never fit me. Macy’s has a few brands of “fitted” shirts, which have a narrower waist: Geoffrey Beene, Van Heusen, maybe Kenneth Cole. If you can afford it, Nordstrom will make sweet semi-custom shirts in your precise measurements.
Pants (trousers) used to be problematic for me. With the kind of activities I was doing, my thigh muscles got really big, but my waist was small. It was a huge pain in the ass to find pants that accommodated my proportions.
Some store I was in recently said I should ask for a “European cut”, since then I’ve been getting shirts that fit my shoulders but weren’t boxy.
I started doing a different sport and my legs got smaller!
But at the time, I used to get all my work pants larger and have the waist tailored to fit, which always added an extra cost to my clothing budget. :mad: Sometimes I could get by with just a belt, but it looked pretty stupid, like I was a little kid in my big brother’s suit and/or the butt would be super-saggy.
Nowadays, I would go for the European cut, as it’s described on this page.
I got a 46 chest and a 32 waist so it’s hard to find anything off the rack. The thing is people now wear clothes baggy. They’re not supposed to fit, so that makes it a bit easier
I second Lands End; they have plenty of dress shirts in “tailored fit” as well as suit separates and they don’t have to be custom tailored to your size (meaning you can buy them off the rack instead of having them made to your precise dimensions). Macy’s and others also carry tailored or athletic fit stuff. I don’t think I’d buy dress clothes from Target but they do have all kinds of “athletic fit” t-shirts that are nice and inexpensive.
I wouldn’t consider myself a fitness model by a longshot but since I lost a bunch of weight around my middle I’ve noticed that regular fit shirts are just way too big - they hang like a tent around my torso and the upper arms are incredibly oversized (I don’t have thin arms, the shirts are just too baggy).
Express would have been my recommendation. I have a similar problem to you. I got in to lifting a couple of years ago. Now I need to buy XL to fit my shoulders but that makes the shirt too big for the rest of me. It sucks.
A possibility, if you’re willing to do shopping by mail/online:
Joe Sugar’s of St. Paul, NC - Men’s clothing shop that specializes in fitting anyone, from Big and Tall, to Short and Small. I used to go their when I was younger. Good people, too.
It is kind of annoying. I’m by no stretch of the imagination huge, but a lot of clothes don’t seem to be cut for guys with muscle at all. Judging from the fit, they’re cut for pudgy guys with skinny legs and arms, or fat guys with big legs and arms. If it fits one place, it doesn’t fit the other part.
When I went jeans shopping recently I had the problem of not knowing what my actual size was initially. I found out that I’m back down to a 30" waist, which is practically where I was as a high school athlete, but I’ve put on a decent amount of leg muscle. I can’t even get my legs into 501s, much less button the fly.
Japanese styles are all slim-leg, with no room for an ass, and with a longer rise between crotch and waist because they tend to be a lot longer in the torso for the same height than a Westerner. I must have tried on 15 pairs of jeans before I found ones that I could get my legs into, but that actually fit at the waist. Vanity sizing is alive and well here; I was a 29" waist for most Japanese brands, and that was sometimes a little big. I ended up getting “relaxed” style Levi 503s (which may be a Europe/Japan designation since I didn’t find that on the US website) that fit me about like 501s do on most other guys; snug but not ball-squishing constricting.
I’ll have to try Lands’ End for the shirts. I know I can’t buy long-sleeve shirts locally since I’ve got ape arms and wide shoulders, by their standards. I do have the same problem as the OP even with stuff from overseas. Shirts are always too big around the torso if they fit my shoulders and chest. Makes me look like I’m still fat. I’ve bought a couple of pairs of slacks from LE before and been moderately satisfied. The fit was good, the fabric was decent, but he threads on the cuffs gave out after only a few months and I had to have them re-done. It might be an issue with that particular style.
I’m not even going to bother trying to get suits off the rack anymore. Here is just hopeless. Everything is cut completely wrong for my shape. I looked in the US too the last time I went home for a visit. I wear a 42 jacket, but obviously even the “athletic cut” that has an 8 inch difference between the jacket size and the trouser size has trousers that are way too big to tailor well. Separates would solve that problem, but no tailor can do much for arm length unless it’s made to measure from the beginning. I’ve got a wing span over 4" longer than my height. My current trusty navy that I bought years ago fits all right, but needs to be replaced, and was just slightly too short in the arms anyway.
I’m probably just going to have to get bespoke for my next suit. Considering how ridiculous Japanese prices are, it might be cheaper to take a trip overseas to get that done. Unless anyone knows of a reputable online tailor?
