In 1975 when I started in business school, directly following my undergraduate years, I think I owned one blue blazer and a pair of blue/grey/cranberry plaid pants. I recall having to wear those as a senior since I was the President of a large student organization and was called on to speak several times before groups of corporate recruiters and alumni. No one expects an Arts & Sciences student majoring in economics and government to dress to the standards of the corporate world, so my go-to-meeting outfit was just fine in a garish, disco-like mid-1970s way. I’m pretty sure I bought the garments from a catalogue retailer called King Size, since the local haberdashery in Ithaca (a place called Irv Lewis, after its old Jewish owner…Irv Lewis…makes sense) carried nothing that fit me. For the four years I had been in college I had mostly shopped through King Size since the only other big men’s store I knew was a place called Bonds and it was on Times Square in New York City. King Size has been around since 1920 and I think started in Brockton, Massachusetts, though it now seems to have reorganized in some way to be run from Indianapolis. The quality of their products was always marginal at best, but since they go up to 10X, it was at least a place where I could buy something that more or less covered my body. I recall that they were still learning about sizing big and tall guys because there would be weird fit issues like for instance the calves of the pants were always extremely tight for some reason. I suspect that their designers just figured they could make the waist bigger and leave everything else to to flow from there down to normal size cuffs. By the time you got to the calves, that design concept came up short…or should I say, tight.
Once starting in business school, my awareness of my corporate clothing requirements awakened as the interviewing with corporate recruiters began almost immediately. At the time there was a guy named Sy Syms who sort of started the whole clothing outlet store concept with his stores Syms (also makes sense). His tag line for his TV ads was, “Syms, for the educated consumer” because he got factory seconds and overproductions and slashed the price off name-brand labels. He also did what good merchants always do, he built in a sense of urgency. This was not Filene’s Basement with women tearing each others hair out to get at some scrap of clothing, but he did claim to mark down his garments week to week to create the sense that a smart buyer should stop by regularly and play the cat and mouse game of waiting…but not too long…to get the best deals. So, I made a road trip down to Syms in Nassau County, Long Island to see what they might have in business suits that would fit me. What I discovered was that my size was still beyond the norms enough that when I asked for the size I needed a salesperson showed me a rack that was in the back corner and that swiveled front to back to double its capacity. On the back side of the lowest and most remote rack in the store were four suits that were in my size. Anyone else in the normal size range would have had 500 suits to choose from in the Syms warehouse. The four on offer were one black suit, which was obviously for a funeral since no one wore black back then, one mint green suit that was a polyester blend (think leisure suit), and two two-piece wool blend pinstripe suits, one in navy and one in charcoal. Unbelievable! Just my luck! I bought the matched set for probably $100 apiece, which was a small fortune at the time (I seem to recall that my efficiency apartment that year was $125/month). For shirts, I found that Brooks Brothers XL (17 -17½ collar) cut their shirt bodies especially large for their comfort-seeking portly set, so a few white and blue oxford button-down shirts and I was good to go. That set-up got me through my interviews and onto Wall Street in 1976.
Once in the banking groove, I quickly learned about the ubiquitous Hong Kong tailors that would come and set up shop in a Midtown hotel room and measure you up for suits and shirts that you would pick from swatches. The price was higher than Syms, but well below anything at Wallach’s, Brooks Brothers or J. Press…and I could get something that was cut to fit me and exactly the fabric that I wanted. You had to be careful in selecting your navy blue suiting since the tendency was to give you something that looked less navy and more royal blue and that was well before such bold suiting colors were de rigeur. I happily went about my adult life and career buying all my clothing from Hong Kong, but the 6-8 week wait for delivery was a killer for an impatient soul like me. Then, out of the blue, an American competitor hit the custom tailoring scene…an operation called Tom Jones….probably owned by an old Jewish guy named Tom Jones, right? Makes sense. For many years I used Tom James and the successor organization, Christopher Allen, set up by the salesman/tailor that served my needs. I bet you anything that Tom James and Christopher Allen are both little old Jewish guys who have a deal worked out with the Hong Kong guys and DHL, but at least it only took 3-4 weeks to get the orders filled. When I moved out here in retirement, I bet I had $50k in suits, sports coats, slacks and 175 button-down tailored shirts. It all ranged in age (all garments bear my name and date of creation) from 1995 – 2025. In 2005 I weighed 475 at the peak, in 2015 I weighed 375 (thanks to a Lap-Band), then in 2021 (post-COVID) I weighed 345 (thanks to hard yard work) and now, thanks to Zepbound and my workout regime, I am almost down to 275. That change can be seen all across my wardrobe, but especially in the more formal and business attire that I so rarely use any more.
After attending a gala the other night where I wore a new pair of good-fitting black slacks from True Classics (a good online retailer), a Charles Tyrwitt (another formalwear online retailer) white shirt with black buttons, and an old Christopher Allen black sports coat that had been cut down twice, but still hung on me like a gunny sack. That made me decide that I needed to buy some new suiting. I stopped at a place called DXL, which carries large sizes and is better than the old King Size, but not over-the-top expensive like a Nordstroms. The salesman asked me my size and I said I didn’t know, but I reached out and took a 52Long off the rack and put it on. It fit me better than any tailored suit I had ever had made and it was priced about ⅒ the price of my tailored duds. I went home, and with Kim’s help I tossed out (technically bagged to give to our cleaning gal, who makes an active market in my old clothes) almost all my old suits and sport coats, all of my dress slacks and about 40% of my tailored shirts (everything pre-Lapband for now). My closet looks like the XXL section of Syms now, with only a few well-spaced items awaiting my use. I’ve said goodbye to about $40k of clothes, but I’ve gone where this man has never gone before…strictly off the rack.