We’re custom shirtmakers and tailors here at Leviner Wood. We can make almost anything the way you want it without batting an eye.

“Hey Larry, can you do non-iron shirts?”

You asked. We listened.

Only ours come with a custom clothier’s twist. Leviner Wood announces its semi-custom, wrinkle-free and stain-free non-iron shirt menu.

• Choose from a regular, slim or full cut.
• Your choice of button-down, spread, point, contrasting or matching fabric collar.
• French and barrel cuffs available. Chest pockets are too, if you like them.
• Monogram them in white, navy, burgundy or black.
• Long-sleeve? Short-sleeve? Sport or Dress shirts? You pick.

Each of our non-iron shirts features an extra long tail to keep it tucked in when you move. Each fabric is made in one of the finest mills in the world and treated with a special finish that keeps the hand supple, the shirts spotless and neat throughout your day. Our shirts are rated 3.8 d.p. out of a possible 4.0 for wrinkle-free garments. And, they look as good as they feel with all the details of a finely made dress shirt. Our full-make non-iron shirts are top-stitched with single-needle tailoring on the arms, bottoms, sleeves and cuffs. Other fine-shirting details are what you’ve come to expect from a custom shirt: split yokes, button plackets on the arms and indestructible pearlized buttons.

Semi-custom means that we can offer our dress shirts at USD $125.00. Choose a swatch or three. You asked. we listened.

Here’s an idea courtesy of Leviner Wood Custom Tailors and Shirtmakers: Get more uses from your six favorite ties.

You’ve got hundreds of ties don’t you? But let’s face it, you really only love about six of them, right? And you wind up wearing them with the same four shirts over and over again.

Why not get more use out of those same ties and build another dozen choices into your wardrobe? The great advantage to having Leviner Wood as your custom tailor is that you have your clothing made.

There is very little in the way of inventory hanging around the studio. Nope, you get thousands of choices, not dozens that were bought thanks to runway trends and now have to be moved.

Let’s take those ties we were talking about.

Bring them in to the studio at 2012 Monument Ave. . Then let’s get out the big, three-ring binder of shirting materials and pick three fabrics that play beautifully with each one of those favorite ties. That’s the way everyone used to do things and the way that we, as custom tailors and shirtmakers still can.

Take a look at that photo at the top of the page. That was from “Apparel Arts” magazine, summer of ’34 or so. It was an industry rag that reported on what was being worn and how to wear it. The center swatch is suiting fabric, the next ring is shirtings, the outer ring is for accessories like ties, socks, pocket squares. One suit, twelve different combinations. Correction: suggested combinations based on season and popularity. All guaranteed winners.

Call keeping up appearances with a minimum of effort on your part. We’ll do the matching, even take photos of suggested combinations for you. All you’ve got to do is bring in those six ties that you love so much. So double down on that repp. Box a favorite regimental stripe. Hit the trifecta of perfect shirts with that beautiful, heavy woven silk number. If that isn’t added value, we don’t know what is.

Traveling recently I ran into a bar with a conspicuous brass sign announcing “Proper Attire Required”. Our ideas at Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers concerning proper dress are obviously different from those of the majority. In fact, a google search for that phrase turns up ads for what are euphemistically called “men’s clubs”. Inside the bar, there wasn’t a tie to be found on anyone other than the barman.

That brings up a question and a thought. Is the dress code necessary? Does it even exist in our overtly democratic time? And if you’re not wearing a tie, why are you wearing a plain white shirt?

(Click to see larger images)

Consider instead a striped, paisley, checked or other patterned shirt to wear with your blue blazer or suit. Pick out a color from the stripe and add a pocket square in a coordinating or contrasting color. pocket squares add personality, like a tie, at a fraction of the price. They also let you stand out while still fitting in.

Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers. Hundreds of patterned shirt fabrics. And we carry pocket squares, too.

(Lot 2865 from the Sotheby’s auction catalog of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.)

“I wear this one less often, because of its cut which suggests rather the fashions of an earlier age.” So said The Duke of Windsor in A Family Album.

He was referring to a navy fur-lined overcoat with an Astrakhan collar made for him by Simpson & London Ltd. in 1934 and seen above. It reached almost to his ankles and fell in pleats down the back below the waist line. Fashionable man-about-town that he was, he knew that this coat, although perfect for a bitterly cold day in New York, had no real place in his wardrobe after the 1950′s. Fashions had changed, as he so rightly noted in his memoirs.

The Duke of Windsor continued to wear many of the suits and hats that he had commissioned in the 1930′s and 1940′s. He had more suits, jackets and trousers made up in the 1950′s and I imagine continued right up until his death. He was a clotheshorse after all, and he was very stylish.

The point of all this is that when your clothes are cut with an eye toward enduring style, they will last you forever. Lapels will narrow and widen. Skinny suits will come and go. Pleats will be back. The great secret in creating custom clothing is that you can follow the vagaries of fashion — when it suits you — and ignore them when they don’t.

In other words, Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers are here to make you look good all the time. Own your look, be precisely tailored, work with us to create clothing with enduring style and you will never have to pack away a fashionable mistake again.

(July 5, 2010 - Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images North America)

Are you as struck as we are with this photo taken during the Queen’s recent visit to Ground Zero? This is the middle of a heat wave on the East Coast. Yes, the officers of the NYPD are in Dress Blues, as is appropriate. Yes, the Secret Service wore dark suits, as is expected. Yes Prince Phillip wore a beautifully cut navy blue suit and a pocket square, which comes as no surprise.

But look carefully at the photographers in the press section.

There is a cameraman wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. In our professional opinion, it is a custom suit and shirt. You try hoisting a television camera up to your shoulder without the jacket riding up to your ears. Nigh on impossible.

Unless you are wearing a well-cut and beautifully tailored custom suit from Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers. In which case the scye of your suit will let your jacket move with you as does the cameraman’s. Leaving you looking more like the on-air talent and less like a sweaty tourist with a nice camera.

Anybody remember that song? Larry is traveling in the Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach area today. If you’d like to start the summer right, please give him a call or email and he’ll be happy to arrange an appointment for you.

Email Larry

The shirt off your back should be different from the others stacked on the department store shelves. Especially when we have four real seasons to deal with. It feels like summer this morning, so let’s discuss your summer shirt choices.

As your custom shirtmakers, we here at Leviner Wood know your preferences for heavier twills and oxford cloth. They starch up nicely, look crisp and professional. They also wear warmer than some of the fabrics to which you have access. Besides, while blue and white solids and stripes are irreproachable business wear, hotter weather and stronger light call for a little color to be added into the strict blues and grays of your suit wardrobe.

First up: cotton poplin or broadcloth. Papeline was first woven in France, in the town of Avignon, once the papal seat. It is a plain, strong weave. Although it is very lightweight (heavier weights are used for khakis), it irons nicely and with a bit of  starch (if you like starch) keeps you cool and crisp all day. American cotton broadcloth is called poplin in Great Britain and here as there it is made up into everything from raincoats to boxer shorts. We recommend several shirts in various stripes which help to negate the slight transparency of a lighter fabric. Summer tattersalls, for example, are classics under a blue blazer

(A classic pink, aqua, royal and navy blue summer tattersall)

End-on-end is a term used to define the making of another kind of broadcloth in which two color stands of cotton are woven into a sort of cross-hatch. One of the colors is almost always white, although it doesn’t have to be. In a mid-blue or pink end-on-end makes up into a beautiful lightweight white collar and cuffs dress shirt. We like to see colored shirts made of this fabric: grays, blues, pinks, lavender, pale greens and yellows, although there are some beautiful patterns in this fabric, too.

(The familiar light blue end-on-end)

Pinpoint oxford. For those of you pining for the beefier oxford cloth of your buttondowns, pinpoint oxford is the answer. The only difference in this broadcloth fabric is that two strands are woven over two strands instead of the simpler basketweave of the oxford cloth. It results in a silkier hand (feel) that is faintly more lustrous to the eye. You can’t go wrong with a pink buttondown in pinpoint oxford and a white shirt will look beautiful for day or evening events.

(Pink pinpoint oxford in extreme closeup)

Finally, the ultimate in luxury summer shirtings — James Bond’s fabric of choice — sea island cotton first produced on Hilton Head Island in 1790. Of course, the original doesn’t exist anymore thanks to the Civil War, a  plague of boll weevils in the 1920′s and a host of other problems. We do have acceptable and luxurious alternatives: Supima® extra long-staple cotton and Egyptian long-staple cottons, and a Sea Island branded material that is every inch the extra-long-staple blend of Egyptian, Peruvian and American threads that you expect and appreciate. They are more vibrant when dyed, more lustrous, softer, silkier and very durable despite the fineness of the cloth into which it is woven. Every designer on earth uses the stuff. Only Leviner Wood makes it to fit you. We recommend an unfused, soft collar on all your most luxurious shirts. Consider a tuxedo shirt in extra-long staple cotton for the ultimate in comfort.

In addition to Sea Island cotton, Leviner Wood carries 2 ply 120′s twills by Loro Piana, luxuriously soft and lightweight broadcloths by Thomas Mason, Zegna and John Anderson and a new Royal 140′s, 2 ply twill and broadcloth that is tightly woven and lightweight without being see-through. If you’re looking for that special summer shirt that is the essence of understated luxury, give us a call today.

(Image: The Daily Mail)

With the warmer weather officially here, we at Leviner Wood would like to extol the virtues of our favorite warm weather fabric: wool.

Yes wool. Oh, linen, linen/silk and cottons have their places, and keep us looking good on the weekends, but nothing beats wool for when you need to look good and stay cool. That’s because wool is a natural wicking agent. Sure, sheep are sheared in summer to keep them cool and to harvest the heavy winter coat of wool. They don’t sweat the way we do — they sort of huff and puff to keep cool. Sort of the way that we do when we mop our collective brow and exhale a deeply felt “hot enough for ya?” But the beauty of that heavy winter coat is that it can be spun out into threads that are very long and very, very fine. That’s what that whole Super 100′s designation is all about.

And the finer the thread, the lighter the fabric created from it. Compare your best Super 150′s + trousers to your jeans. Which would you rather wear on a hot and humid day? We like to think that the forgiving cut of traditionally tailored menswear, combined with the advances in ultra-lightweight cloth are the perfect remedy for June, July and August.

Well, the forgiving cut, super lightweight wool and really good air-conditioning anyway.

I want to put a bug in your ear. A light gray bug.

This summer is shaping up to be a little different from others. Light gray, classically trim cut, two button suits are in. And that means that the best light gray fabrics are going fast. Everyone wants one and getting ahold of the exact cloth you want can be a challenge. It’s enough to drive you mad, men. If you get the allusion.

Pair yours with a crisp white French-cuff shirt (in a broadcloth or open weave to maximize coolness), tonal tie in gray and a white linen pocket square to really amp up your Draper style. Dark brown shoes look best, in our opinion, but black are never wrong.

For a less Madison Avenue look, pink, very light blue and lilac shirts look very Richmond. Especially with those Vineyard Vines and Hermes ties.

Don’t have your light gray summer suit yet? It’s not too late, especially if you’re a client at Leviner Wood Custom Clothier and Shirtmakers. That’s what we’re here for –give us a call and let us see that your summer suits you better than a T.

With the warmer weather, we at Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers find ourselves in shirtsleeves more often than not. We’ve even been known to ditch the tie on the odd day. Which is when we remember with a certain fondness the old Brook Brothers Oxford Cloth Buttondown shirt (called the OCBD on the forums….)

That buttondown staple of our youth was great to wear without a jacket, without a tie and without trousers (thrown over your swimsuit coming back from the pool or during a sail.) It got softer with age, wore like iron and had the perfect collar roll. Perfect.

They don’t do that anymore, the perfect collar roll. Three things seem to have changed: the shorter length of the points on the collars, the addition of lining on collars and cuffs and the positioning of the collar buttons. Don’t get us started on how the non-iron stuff feels.

“But wait!” you shout. “You’re a custom clothier and shirtmaker, doesn’t that mean anything?”

OK, you caught us. If you’d like to revisit that iconic cut, the OCBD with the perfect collar roll, give a call. We can make them just as good as you remember. Even with or without the billowing material around the waist. And for those of you who miss the yellow, blue, red or green stripes… custom may be the only way left to go. We might even find that perfect pink that fades beautifully under the summer sun and salt spray.