Thrifting challenge: Men's shirts and pants

With Shawn’s new job comes the need to add a few things to his wardrobe. In his previous job, he was able to mostly wear jeans and tees since he was doing a lot of lifting, breaking down of pallets and other physical work. With the new job, he’s still doing some manual labor but it’s a bit more “business casual,” which means button-down shirts and chinos or dress pants. (Or, as Shawn would call them, “slacks.” Which is endearingly and dorkily old-fashioned.) Luckily, he has a pretty good foundation already, so we really only need to add a few new shirts and a new pair or two of pants.

I’ve tried throughout the years to get Shawn interested in fashion with varying degrees of success. He likes John Varvatos a lot, but that’s a little impractical on our budget. It’s also really hard to find his size because he’s very tall and slender. He’s also between sizes, which makes buying pants terribly difficult. The 32x34 is too small; the 34x34 is too big – and 33x34 is hard to come by, although it does exist. Sure, we could tailor all his pants, but Shawn has neither the patience nor does he want to spend the money on tailoring because the man is hard on his clothes and they don’t last.

When it comes to dress shirts, he definitely leans toward neutrals, although recently he has been persuaded by the power of a crisp bright blue button-down. His favorites are gray, black and brown, but he does own burgundy and sage green. I’d like to see him wear a pale pink, maybe a deep purple. He has traditional pale Irish skin with gorgeous blue eyes, so blues are always good, too. But again, his most difficult issue with shirts is sizing. He wears a 15.5” neck, with a 34/35 sleeve. This size is easier to find than it used to be, especially with modern slim-cut fits, but it’s still not a “standard” size.

What this all means is that it’s quite a challenge to thrift shop for Shawn. Apparently, the average male in the U.S. is super short and wide. In general, all I find at the thrift are pants and jeans with a 30” inseam and shirts that are either XXL or with an 18” neck. I find this ironic since the majority of women’s clothes at the thrift are size 2P. I’ve taken to carrying a tape measure with me during my shopping trips so I can measure the inseam on pants and jeans after too many instances of bringing home thrifted jeans only to find that unless there was an imminent danger of flooding, they weren’t going to work.

Tomorrow, however, I am going to brave the thrifts with my friend Vanessa and her daughter, Alexa. We are going with the express mission of trying to find clothes for Shawn. Armed with a tape measure, camera and plenty of snacks, we will brave the wilds of Inglewood, Redondo Beach and Torrance in search of men’s pants and shirts. I have absolute faith in our mission; Vanessa found a pale pink Hermes button-down for her husband on one of her thrifting excursions. Stay tuned for the results!