Kickstart the first tailor-fit, American-made henleys and hoodies | Hacker News Reader

Kickstart the first tailor-fit, American-made henleys and hoodies

blog.pistollake.com

55 pointszapnap40 comments

Shane, one of the other co-founders from Pistol Lake, here. We started Pistol Lake to make basic, well-crafted shirts that just fit. Happy to answer any questions!

Very interesting, as this is the first time seeing your company. Perhaps I missed this (I went over about three pages on the website), but:

1) How much are you trying to raise? What if it fails to meet the goal?

2) How exactly can I get a perfectly fitting shirt? What do I need/get to measure (i.e. is it two things and you get close or is it more)?

Love this idea for a company, by the way. I often have to find clothing in odd corners to fit my physique (tall, thin, long arms and torso). I've ordered tech shirts just because of how they fit (e.g. http://www.googlestore.com/Google+Redesign/Wearables/Men+s+T...) and buy lots of cycling oriented clothing as it seems to fit me better than "mainstream" clothing without being tailored.

1. We just hit $10K, our goal was at least $5K, which is the minimum to place an order for 16 rolls from the mill.

2. Most people are adequately covered by the standard 6 sizes. Ours fit particularly well - how a shirt should. It is a lot about how it fits in certain areas of the body and then drapes. We spent a ton of time perfecting our block, specific for our cotton, and then expanded it with other shirt designs. We take it a few steps further and have made a number of other sizes to fit between a Small and a Medium, and one between a Medium and a Large, and then tall sizes, tapered cuts for extremely athletic people, and a relaxed cut for heavier.

We're working on the interface now, and will have it done when the campaign ends to collect measurements. We can match you pretty well with height and weight, but chest helps a lot as well. Whatever you're comfortable giving!

Just ordered, and your reply is confusing me a bit regarding the measurements. I entered some measurements under "My Profile", are those all I need to enter, or will there be a different interface once the campaign ends?

First time I'm doing something like this, so I'd like to make sure I'm doing it right :).

The section of My Profile was our first stab at taking in measurements, but we're refining it and making the UX much better. We'll definitely let you know when it launches.

I would love to see them tackle t-shirts and dress shirts. I'm a tall (6'4") slim man and a lot of the times when I get a t-shirt there's so much extra material sticking out on my arms. I want it to wrap snuggly around my arm like it does for people who have bigger arms. Once in a while I buy a t-shirt that does this but it's very sporadic.

For dress shirts I usually do 2 things. I get mediums, never tuck them in and roll-up my sleeves (this is my preferred method). If I want my sleeves to actually look like they fit me I get a large and once in a while I get it tailored, if I don't tailor them it's because I usually wear that shirt with something over it like a sweater/vest/blazer/jacket/etc so it hides the bagginess around my back/waist area.

I would really like to pre-order this but I actually don't see any examples on their site of what their different sizes are and how they'll fit. All I see is the same model type. You can tout that you are going to have all these amazing different sizes for all types and not showcase that. I'm particularly looking for someone of my body-type.

I'm a big fan of custom-made clothing (I'm an engineer at ThirdLove [1] - you take a picture of yourself, we figure out your measurements based on the picture, and you can buy clothes from our vertically-integrated brand based on your fit).

Maybe I'm a pretty standard size, but is there really a huge demand for custom-fitted t-shirts/henleys? Custom fit is valuable for clothing that is three-dimensional (suits/sports coats) and/or has many different fit parameters (dress shirts). For the segment of people that are interested in custom-fitted clothing, is a custom tee significantly better than an off the rack one? I guess I'll answer the question for myself - buying the $99 package.

On a side note, some feedback on your checkout process:

As a guest, when I go to check out, after I register/log in, it takes me to a referral page instead of the payments page. That was really confusing. You should be taking people straight to the payments page if you want to maximize your conversions.

[1] http://www.thirdlove.com

Thank you for the support! I wish I could return the favor!

The reality is that many people are served really well by standard sizes - but there are huge pockets of people that aren't, and that traditional retailers choose not to accommodate. We're not doing completely custom clothing eg. an all together different pattern - we'll do it, as a service if none of our sizes fit, but I think that is pretty unlikely.

What we've done is taken the most overlooked body types - tall and thin, extremely athletic (body builders etc.), and heavier-set guys that want nice shirts, and built sizes that look good on them.

That said, I DO genuinely think that our medium shirt (the size I wear) fits better than any medium I've tried before. We've had a TON of feedback to confirm this.

Great advice on the checkout forwarding. Will definitely make that change soon!

I think there is a demand for t-shirts and henleys that a certain online-savvy, fit-conscious consumer demographic perceives to be customized.

In the states, if you fall into a certain number of body types and desire properly fitting clothing your options are very limited without tailoring. For me, even clothing that is aimed at my body type doesn't fit well. I appear to be on the extreme end or simply have too high of standards.

I know I'd pay a pretty penny for just a few shirts that fit exceedingly well.

This is -exactly- why we're doing what we're doing. What is your body type, if you don't mind me asking? Would love to see where you fit in our size scale and shoot you a shirt.

Really a great idea for a business. It won't likely go upsetting the powerhouses of the clothing industry but that doesn't mean there isn't a large revenue stream to be had on those of us who fall into these areas. Millions might be small sums for said powerhouses, but it could be life-altering revenue for a nimble and focused company and it's employees.

No need to send, I plan on ordering here shortly. :)

A smart move by these guys was targeting a high-profile member of a fashion community (in this case /r/malefashionadvice, though I wouldn't be surprised if they hit up Styleforum and other places as well) and sending him a bunch of stuff to review -- the guy reviewed it and it hit the frontpage of a ~250K community for a day[1]. This isn't a particularly novel or high-cost approach, but its a classic marketing move that seems to be glossed over by nouveau entrepreneurs. Writing a book on Rails? Send a copy of the book to a prominent Rails blogger to see what they think. Launching an AirBNB for corgis? You'd be well-advised to spend an afternoon finding and reaching out to the dozens of corgi forums.

[1] Incidentally, this is why I think Reddit advertising will never take off: the value proposition of stuff like this is just so much more appealing.

Thank you. We're huge fans of MFA (subreddit every dude should check out: http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/) and jdbee was awesome. Since we were avid readers, we knew the rules and how to approach him - we told him straight up that we expected complete honesty and were open to the public. Things like this are a win, win I think. I love reading about new brands, and enjoy the unbiased reviews, and the companies (like mine) really benefit by gaining a few customers and a lot of eyeballs.

Another good person to approach would be Dan Trepanier of The Style Blogger (http://tsbmen.com). They have a [self-proclaimed] readership of 100K+ monthly, and they offer style advice to specific groups like bigger guys, really tall guys, short guys, etc. I think your product would be a perfect fit for their audience.

I'll definitely reach out. Any recommendations for getting the word out are much appreciated!

If I may make a suggestion: there's a hugely underserved population of short (< 5'6") men who cannot buy good quality, well-fitting clothing in the US. I would love to see a small shirt manufacturer tackle this demographic.

Great idea! Shoot me an email at will@pistollake.com and I'll get some measurements from you and work on the pattern.

Our XS fits 5'6" well, but we haven't tested to see where it starts to become too long. Here are a few people that are 5'6" wearing it:

https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Erik_XS.jpg https://pistollake.com/images/examplefits/Zach_XS.jpg

NAME SIZE HEIGHT WEIGHT PANT SIZE CHEST STOMACH BICEP ARM LENGTH Zach XS 5'6" 140 28/28 35" 31" 11" 28" Erik XS 5'6" 130 28/28 35" 31" 10.25" 28"

Question: Sorry if this is listed, I couldn't find it. How do I figure out what size is the best fit for me?

They look awesome and this is such a great idea. I've been thinking about something similar since I can't find graphic t-shirts that fit well AND look good (ie have a graphic I want to wear). Generally everyone prints on american apparel and to be honest AA sucks. I have a lot of artwork I plan to do a test run with, will you guys be doing graphic t's? Any chance I can buy a stack of shirts to print on for my test run?

Seems you have every country on the planet in your drop down list for the shipping address, but I keep getting "no shipping option" no matter which country I choose.

Sorry about that! What're you trying to order and to what country? We'll get to the bottom of it.

I was trying to order one polo to Canada. Then I tried a bunch of different countries at random.

We are just implementing international shipping. It has been really cost-prohibitive previously. UPS is $76, Priority is $32, we've figured out some cheaper options, but we want to make sure everything we offer is at prices we'd pay... and we haven't been able to nail it down yet. That said, we're looking at ~$14 shipping to most parts of Canada now. Not sure if that makes sense on one polo, but at least we have an option.

I ordered a polo as well - easily my favorite shirt in my wardrobe. It's extremely comfortable, and I'm definitely going to make another purchase.

Check out the new henley - it is a one-of-a-kind. I may be biased (I'm a co-founder of Pistol Lake :) ) - but I've never had so many compliments on a shirt before.

Definitely interested in this range but I'm still waiting on my order from the first campaign. How far are you guys from getting the UK orders sent?

We're starting international shipping next week! Can't wait.

Congrats! I was in on the kickstarter. Great company with a vision for men's clothing I can get behind.

Congrats! Stoked for the new line, loved the first [Kickstarter] package.

Can't wait to get you your hoodies. :)

I ordered a polo as part of their Kickstarter launch and really like it!

Killer - we aim to please.

The question is.. was it lagoon blue? :)

Is it possible to see the colors that will be available?

Hey! The colors are in the slider images in the middle of the page. They are charcoal, black, white, navy, red, and steel.

Oh cool, thanks. I actually hadn't scrolled down far enough to see them. I was that sold!

Loved the first kickstarter package - perfect fit.

What'd you get? We had some quirks with the polos, but overall, I'm really proud of how well the first run came out. We're going to continue to make improvements every batch, so let me know if you have any things you'd like to see changed!

Where does the blog post talk about angel round?

Good observation, a section got removed, adding it back now. Happy to write separate blog about it as well, if you're interested. We raised a unique round from mostly younger company founders - an advisory round.

Wearing the v-neck right now! Congrats.

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