http://store.turnbullandasser.co.uk/Custom_Shirt
They give cocktail cuffs (which they call the '2 button turnback') as an option, unlike Mrs W's similar online sub-bespoke service. It necessitates some self-measurement - sleeve length, seat, wrist circumferences),- but gives explicit instructions in how to do so. The number of measurements ought - ought - to give a more correct fit than the basic stock special option.
Hello? Mr Asser? I'd like some more shirts.
I have tried both full bespoke and the somewhat cheaper 'stock special' options at Emma Willis. As a person of pretty standard build, I'm not entirely convinced that bespoke is worth the difference in price, and Mrs W's 'semi-bespoke' option is pretty much indistinguishable from the bespoke product.
Bespoke is the right job if one is some kind of Brobdingnagian monster, a stump-legged capering dwarf, or some hideous mis-shapen offence against God - or have the sort of exacting requirements associated with the newly-enriched ('I want ten of them ones. In platinum. But plated in silver. With a mink trim. And a quail's egg pocket, covered in caviar.'). But, for the price-sensitive family man of moderate proportions, 'custom made' is probably the perfect option.
I said I wanted Sea Island! You given me Swiss cotton again, you half-wit!
Both 'custom' and 'semi-bespoke' (and 'baby bespoke', a term that the menswear shop New & Lingwood adopted a couple of years ago) are pissy euphemisms that owe much to the manipulative and deceitful shysters in the style press who insist on saying 'vintage' instead of 'used' and 'dark chocolate' instead of 'plain chocolate', and no doubt refer to their time-share flats in the Algarve as 'luxury apartments' in 'seasonal ownership'. 'Semi-bespoke' makes as much sense as being 'half-pregnant'. And I believe that, in the US, 'custom' is effectively synonymous with bespoke, which further muddies an already deliberately opaque issue.
Anyway, in the interests of research, I intend to order a shirt and let you both know how it turns out.
