If it hasn’t been obvious, I find that watches are a great way to accent or support your personal style. Sure, they are functional tools, but they can also convey a message about your personality. As well, they should also be relatable to what you’re wearing. For instance, you wouldn’t be wearing a 1000m dive watch with a suit (I hope), or a classic dress watch for hiking in the back country. It’s not to say that you couldn’t – it just wouldn’t look or feel quite right. When it comes to shirts, you can of course get anything from your local store. If you want something that fits with your look – and fits you perfectly, then you’re going the custom route. Today, we’re looking at two options for custom dress shirts from Deo Veritas.
In the last few years, ordering custom shirting (and other clothing) over the internet has become simpler and simpler, and costs have become entirely reasonable, given the level of customization you can get into with the various details (cuff and collar styles, contrasting fabrics, etc), on top of the fact that you are getting a shirt made to your measurements. I’ve looked at some other options before (over here), and that’s where a recommendation came through to have a look at Deo Veritas.
For this outing, we looked at two shirts from the brands. One of them was a more classic route, where you provide all of the various measurements. The one I want to talk about first, however, is something I’d consider a gateway to custom shirting – their QSize fitting option. With the QSize method, you provide some basic measurements (neck and sleeve, height, weight, among others) and they can whip up the correct proportions on the shirt that will fit you. Oh, and you can define the type of fit you want. This is a bit simpler than getting all of the various measurements a true MTM shirt would require, and you can zip through that part of the setup very quickly.
Before you get to the sizing, however, you need to figure out what your shirt is going to look like. With Deo Veritas, the fabrics come from all over the world. For the traditionally-sized French Cuff shirt, I went with an Italian cotton that has a very soft feel, and a lovely bit of texture in the weave. For the office-ready QSize shirt, we went with their performance fabric, which is a poplin made from a blend of cotton and bamboo. Once you have settled in on your fabric, then you get to decide on the following design elements:
- Collar
- Cuff
- Placket
- Interlining
- Buttons
- Monogramming
- Fabric Contrast (Outer)
- Back Pleats
- Hem (Bottom Cut)
- Collar Stays
- Contrast Thread
- Matching Pocket Square
Once you’ve done all that, and submitted your sizing for the shirt, you pay for your order, and await the process to result in a shirt on your doorstep. With Deo Veritas, all of those selections you make are sent over to their facility in Turkey, where the shirts are sewn up. In our case, with having two shirts made, it took a little over a week (the brand states they need 7-14 days to make the shirt, which is a good bit faster than some of the other brands out there) between placing the order and receiving them in the mail. Then, it was the moment of truth. How would they look? More importantly, how would they fit?
Fortunately for you and me (well, ok, really just me) they fit excellently. The one where I provided the exact measurements does fit ever-so-slightly better, but the QSize method came up with a shirt that does fit me quite well. So, at least from my experience, I would recommend the QSize method for someone just trying out custom shirting from the start. This can give you a baseline, and then you could work from that one (as it turns into your shirt profile) to get a more specific fit (tighter in the body, perhaps, or a touch shorter on the sleeve).
Looking over both shirts, I didn’t notice any loose threads or other imperfections in the sewing – basically, nothing to suggest that this was not quality work done by the tailors. As to the materials, as I expected, I really like the Italian fabric I chose for the French Cuff shirt. The combination of the softness and the texture just make it for a great shirt to be worn with a suit. For the other material, that took me a little longer to warm up to. It’s got a bit of a different feel to it (though still soft, not starchy or uncomfortable) than I might otherwise choose, and the material itself is a bit thinner than I would normally go with.
However, with the warmer months coming up here, I have a feeling that this performance blend shirt will play out quite nicely for heading into the office, especially when #wearatiewednesday rolls around. As with all custom clothing, time will tell how well the shirts from Deo Veritas hold up. My initial impression of the quality is favorable, and I foresee these getting good amounts of wear.
So, why would you chose Deo Veritas over some other online purveyor of custom shirts? Frankly, a lot of the brands have similar pricing, and can build very similar shirts. The big differentiator for Deo Veritas is their QSize method of sizing a shirt. This is a great way for you to dip your toe in the waters, without having to know (or go to a tailor to be measured) all of the various measurements that are normally required. Past that, it comes down to fabric selections (of which they have 185 at Deo Veritas), and some of the other finer details (for instance, some brands offer contrasting fabrics on the collar, cuffs, or placket on the web, whereas with Deo Veritas it requires a conversation post-sale to add it).
In the end, for this Deo Veritas review, it boils down to if you’re a newbie in this world or not. If so, the Deo Veritas QSize is a perfect route to go. For those who have more experience with the world of custom shirting, it’s going to boil down to the materials (type, color, and pattern) that the different brands have on offer, and how your resulting fit works for you. For someone starting out, the variety of choices for customization and fabrics, and pricing running from $70 – $185, makes for a killer combo when building a shirt. Oh, and like with other brands, if your first shirt isn’t quite right, it can be altered (or remade) for free; those alterations are done at their NYC facility. In short, this is about as risk-free as you can get, and you’ll be buying a shirt made for you, that you will want to wear all the time. Put me down in the “fan” column, for sure! deoveritas.com
