Good on you, Alex

Alexander Kabbaz is one of the best custom shirtmakers in the world. I say "one of the best" instead of "the best" out of inborn caution, not because I can think of any or even conceive of any who are better. Alex has great technical skill and an excellent eye, but that's not what makes him so good. It's the fact that he is intolerant of imperfection. Most shirtmakers will cut the first shirt in an order as a sample, make a few adjustments, and declare success. Not Alex. He makes a muslin fitting shirt (not really muslin but ugly mustard-colored broadcloth). It fact, he makes muslin fitting shirts again and again and again until the fit it perfect (his definition of perfect, not the client's: his definition is much more exacting than that of any of his clients). Then and only then does he cut the order. The construction is impeccable. I have never seen better at any price. He matches patterns at both the shoulders and the plackets. I know of no other maker who systematically matches the plackets. He is willing to try anything. If you wanted a shirt made of Kevlar, he would make it. Old-fashioned nightshirts? No problem. If you can imagine it, he can make it. And it will be perfect, or it will be fixed. Not fixed well enough so that all but the pickiest clients would shut up about it. Fixed. I have two shirts that Alex made for me. I wish that I could have more, but his prices are as high as his shirts are excellent. I would quickly go broke.

Alex has been selling his clients underwear, socks, and other accessories for many years, both as a service for his clients and to increase his sales. A few years ago, he figured that he might as well see if he could sell some on the Web, so he put up a site and began to take orders. Business has exploded. He is one of the largest retailers of Zimmerli underwear, and he sells more Pantherella seasonal socks than anyone in the United States. This has been a mixed blessing: sure, the business has been good, but his website hasn't really been much help to him. The entire process of order fulfillment was largely manual, and the fact that he was only set up to take Paypal cost him sales. And so he embarked on a modernization project: new server, new software, new processors, new methods of payment (credit cards and Google Checkout). He did the migration on Saturday night, and it has been successful. Two things about this amaze me: it was a tremendous amount of work, and it required a great deal of technical savvy that Alex didn't have when he started the process. He taught himself what he needed to know, and he did the work (along with his lovely and talented wife Joelle Kelly and their ever-resourceful assistant Monika) without allowing either his custom shirt business or his existing accessory business to suffer. It's a tremendous improvement, and I think that it will explode an business that is already exploding. He certainly deserves for it to do so.

(And, if you're looking to buy ridiculously expensive socks, go for the Sea Island ones. Sure, the cashmere ones are more decadent, but they'll wear out in a few wearings. Plus, it's way too hot for cashmere this time of year. And the pictured socks from Marcoliani are also nice, if not as nice as the Pantherella Sea Islands.)