The Truth About Duluth
Ever since I gave up on wearing tidy whiteys, which must now be over thirty years ago, I have been in search of the perfect underwear. That may sound like a mundane quest or one that should never have been in play, but the technology of clothing and materials has come a long way. We were all raised to think that only cotton could keep you comfortable, and that keeping it all white was the best path to sanitary laundry maintenance. Bleach was the answer to clean clothes, but as we all also know, bleach degrades the fibers of most material. I have never understood people who prefer broadcloth underwear (boxers). I’ve tried them, but they really make little sense since there is no give and the likelihood of getting a blowout under exertion is high. Luckily, the world moved in a direction to offer multi-colored knitted undergarments. Thank goodness.
For many years I relied on catalogue companies like Eddie Bauer to offer up the best alternatives in clothing in general. The overall problem for me was that Eddie only went so far in sizing. As opposed to L.L.Bean or J.Crew, who chose to stay 100% in the mainstream and not bother with outlier sizes like I need, at least Eddie Bauer tried. That has good and bad aspects to it. I understand all too well that I am at the fringe of apparel selection due to my size. I’ve lived there for fifty years. In Rome I used to order from Montgomery Wards (Remember them? They went out of business after 129 years in 2001). In college I either went to New York City and shopped at Bonds on Times Square or I bought from a company called King Size, which has operated for 100 years now. Since they seem to be under new management now (probably some sort of Private Equity play), they may be a very different merchant but I remember them as having product that had about a 20% chance of fitting well, and 20% chance of being so bad or ill-fitting as to be hard to understand what the seamstresses were thinking. I guess they figured that big boys don’t complain…and they would be right in my case.
I spent the last fifty years not ever returning things. I might throw things out or stuff them unused in the back of the closet, but I honestly NEVER returned items no matter how bad they were. I considered it big guy breakage, pure and simple. Living in NYC I had the advantage of a store called Rochester Big & Tall, which had a store in midtown that carried all the good brands that cut clothes for the big and tall crowd. It was never cheap, but it was much better quality than anything I found elsewhere. Gradually two trends started occurring; more brands started adding big & tall sizing to their normal lines, and several new online retailers popped up that focused on the big & tall category. It was gradually getting easier to find things that more or less fit, so us big guys started being able to act like normal consumers that had some choices they could make. The first thing was to stop using King Size. They were sticking with the low cost and low quality market. It so happens that where quality is very important in suits, slacks and sweaters, generally socks and underwear are less quality-sensitive.
But should that be right? I would argue that the goods you wear daily and that are closest to your skin should be of the highest quality. Luckily, the big underwear players like Jockey and Fruit-of-the-Loom started making bigger sizes. But those guys are traditionalists. I personally find that’s fine with undershirts (crew or v-neck), but underpants are a different can of corn altogether. Briefs v. Boxers may be a great array for late-night TV comedians, but the reality now is that there are a dozen versions of each, including the straddling Boxer-Brief. And of course material science has entered the picture for performance materials that hold moisture, keep warm, keep cool, circulate air and so much more.
I just saw an ad for MTailor, a brand of clothes that uses an online measuring ap to make a perfect fit for what they call the eight key measurements everyone needs to get just right. This may have gone too far now. Getting fitted for a suit that way or even a pair of jeans makes sense, but do knit t-shirts really need that sort of finesse? For Pete’s sake, socks have come in one size forever (even now, sized socks are pretty much S/M/L/XL. Women’s dresses are still 2-4-6-8-10-12-14-16, and we know women care lots about exacting fit.
About ten years ago Eddie Bauer became my go-to brand. Everything they sold they made up to 3XL. This was not jumbo stuff, but 3XL can pretty much cover men up into the 300-pound arena. The truth is, it crept up through XL, XXL and then XXXL. They also generally add the T for tall, so 3XL and 3XLT makes a big difference. Some guys are big and short and hate added or even normal length. Others (like me) are both big and tall. I tend to think that normally thin and tall guys (up to about 6’5”) can shop in lots of places, but if they are 6’6” and above, they have a whole other set of problems I probably don’t even understand.
And then came Duluth. I started noticing their TV ads first. They featured large Midwestern-looking guys (lumberjacks?) who needed pants as shirts that combated plumber’s butt. They needed tough cloth for hard-working men, but who wanted a bit of give in the material. Thus was born the Flex-Firehose material that had crotch gussets and other features to keep clothes fitting as men worked and pushed and pulled naturally on their clothes. I have been hugely impressed by Duluth because they market smart, manufacture smart and seem to anticipate all my needs. Their website has 112 items on their underwear category (multiplied by an average of four color options and seven sizes up to 4XL, that means over 3,000 men’s’ underwear SKU’s alone). It’s very smart. I’m always trying new models in the general range of the style I like. Some are performance materials, some have added features, and some just sound nice like a new model I just ordered today, called Dang Soft. I can’t wait to try them.
I have been getting my suits and shirts tailor-made for a long time. I’ve tried the online measurement-intensive Proper Cloth and prefer my own tailor. But I have five times the suits and ten times the broadcloth shirts I need at this stage of life. Now I am far more in the Duluth sweet spot. I need pants that give, underwear that gives, undershirts that stay white and socks that get over my huge ankle/instep configuration. I will not spend every day thinking about Duluth’s underwear selection, but my life is certainly better for all the attention they have spent thinking about us big guys and our needs, and for that I need to sing their praises. Hail Duluth.