Collar construction is a point of comparison at Ascot Chang, the Hong Kong shirtmaker offering a bespoke one-piece collar. Berlin's Atelier Fasan makes bespoke shirts with unfused collars and cuffs, using two-ply interlining and handmade buttonholes. The Berlin atelier dates to 1950, placing its commissioned shirts alongside the Hong Kong business founded in 1953. For printed shirts, Honolulu's Bailey's Antiques and Aloha Shirts sells vintage and new aloha examples from its Kapahulu shop, established in 1980.
Ascot Chang has made bespoke shirts in Hong Kong since 1953. Its founder opened a 600 square foot shop on Kimberley Road that year after years of taking orders door to door. The house now cuts shirts and full-canvas suits to measure from Landmark Prince's in Central, with further shops in Shanghai and New York and inside Rustan's in Makati. Trunk shows have run since a first American tour in 1967.
Best for Bespoke shirts and hand-finished suits from a Hong Kong house founded in 1953
Ascot Chang left his hometown of Fenghua at fourteen to apprentice under a master shirtmaker in Shanghai. In 1949 he moved to Hong Kong, where he took orders for custom shirts door to door from Shanghainese businessmen. By 1953 he had opened his first shop, 600 square feet at 34 Kimberley Road. A branch followed at the Peninsula Hotel in 1963. When the 1967 riots hurt sales he took the business on the road, visiting twenty American cities in three months on the firm's first trunk show. His son Tony Chang and brother Johnny Chang led the second generation. They opened the first overseas store in New York in 1986. Today the house cuts bespoke shirts from scratch to a client's measurements. Its bespoke suits take more than forty hours of handwork, including full canvas construction and hand-rolled lapels. The house style is continental, with light shoulder padding and a slim, professional line. Its Hong Kong shops are at Landmark Prince's on Chater Road in Central and at Elements Mall, with the Peninsula shop now closed. Further stores trade in Shanghai and Xiamen, in New York and inside Rustan's in Makati. Trunk shows continue to carry fittings across the United States.
Founded in 1950, one of Berlin's last traditional shirtmakers. Everything from cuffs to collars (unfused, with two-ply interlining) and handmade buttonholes is entirely bespoke. One-piece collar available.
Bailey's has stocked its Kapahulu Avenue storefront near Waikiki with more than 15,000 aloha shirts since 1980, sorting used, vintage, new and specialty stock alongside Hawaiiana antiques. The shop is a regular source for costume designers and collectors chasing discontinued prints.
Bottega Dalmut is Leonida Ferrarese's tailoring house in Francavilla Fontana, Puglia. After studying in New York and working in the marketing offices of Salvatore Ferragamo, he took over the workshop of Maestro Cafueri, founded in 1969, and launched the brand. The atelier sits in a late nineteenth-century Liberty-style palazzo. It makes tailored suits along with ties and shirts and shoes, and it holds fittings in Milan, Zurich, London and Dubai.
Best for Sartorial Suits, Ties
Bottega Dalmut is a tailoring house in Francavilla Fontana, in the province of Brindisi, built by Leonida Ferrarese. He took a degree and a master's in marketing in New York, where he also studied tailoring. He spent time in the marketing offices of Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. He then returned to his home town and took over the historic workshop of Maestro Cafueri, founded in 1969, launching the Bottega Dalmut brand. The atelier occupies a late nineteenth-century palazzo with frescoes and nature-inspired floors in the Liberty style. Clients choose from a wide range of fabrics seated in the salon over a coffee. Everything starts at the cutting table with the tailored suit. The range extends to ties in cashmere or silk, to bow ties and shirts, and to shoes. In January 2020 the Quotidiano di Puglia visited the atelier on via Quinto Ennio. It described a business that exports its suits to Dubai as well as to London and Milan. The house holds made-to-measure appointments in Milan, Zurich, London and Dubai. The midfielder Hakan Çalhanoğlu wore a bespoke midnight-blue herringbone suit from Bottega Dalmut to the Gran Galà del Calcio AIC. The current collection also includes swimwear and suede blazers, together with lightweight wool and silk pieces.
Centro de Bordados Cuenca, established in 1989 at Frank Tosi Iniguez in Cuenca, Ecuador, is a cooperative of 60 women artisans from rural communities in southern Ecuador who hand-embroider cards, straw hats, t-shirts and custom artworks using natural fibers. Its products have been sold internationally since 1989.
British shirtmaker founded in 1986 by Nicholas Wheeler as a student mail-order business at Bristol University; its first physical shop opened on Jermyn Street in 1997, and the flagship now sits at number 100.
Best for Value Jermyn Street shirting.
Charles Tyrwhitt was founded in 1986 by Nicholas Wheeler while he was a student at the University of Bristol. Increasingly critical of how his fellow students dressed, Wheeler decided he could make a better shirt himself, and spent around £300 on five thousand mail-order leaflets and a basic Amstrad word processor to get the business started. The company's name is drawn from Wheeler's own middle names — Charles Tyrwhitt — chosen partly as a nod to a family ancestor, Sir Hercules Tyrwhitt, said to have been killed on a bridge in Northumbria in 1067. The mail-order shirt business grew steadily through the 1990s before opening its first physical shop on Jermyn Street in 1997, placing it on a street with a long-standing association with British shirtmaking. The company's flagship store now sits at 100 Jermyn Street, and its shirts are made in its own factories using European fabrics, a manufacturing claim the company has maintained as it expanded into suits, ties and other menswear.
Italian shirtmaker with an entire one-piece collar collection — linen, jersey, and button-down variants, each made to order and handmade in Italy. Established 1956.
Best for A full made-to-order one-piece collar wardrobe.
Istanbul menswear label that began as a shirt workshop in 1964; joined Turkey's Cebeci Group in 2016 and now runs roughly 31 stores nationwide selling shirts, tailoring and smart-casual pieces.
Best for Menswear, shirts
Dufy traces its start to 1964, when it began producing shirts in a small Istanbul workshop; the brand takes its name from French painter Raoul Dufy. It built its early reputation as a shirt specialist before broadening into fuller menswear - tailoring, knitwear and smart-casual separates - positioning itself between fast fashion and higher-end tailoring houses. In 2016 Dufy joined Turkey's Cebeci Group, which expanded the label's retail footprint to roughly 31 stores across the country, including locations inside Istanbul shopping centers such as Cevahir AVM. The brand sits in a mid-to-premium menswear segment, aimed at structured, wearable office and off-duty pieces rather than trend-driven fast fashion.
Founded in Nice in 1950 by master tailor Jean Goldberg on rue Paradis, dressing Cannes Film Festival stars of the era. His son Albert took over in 1961 and, inspired by a visit to Brooks Brothers in New York, launched the ready-to-wear line renamed Façonnable.
Best for Riviera-blue shirts and blazers.
Façonnable traces back to a single tailoring shop opened on rue Paradis in Nice in 1950 by Jean Goldberg, a master tailor who built a reputation dressing film stars in bespoke tuxedos and gowns for the Cannes Film Festival and the wider Riviera social season, including clients such as Tony Curtis and Cary Grant. The business stayed a made-to-measure operation through the 1950s. In 1961 Goldberg retired and handed the workshop to his son, Albert Goldberg, who took the label in a new direction after a research trip to Brooks Brothers in New York. Rather than continuing purely bespoke work, Albert developed a ready-to-wear collection for men and renamed the business Façonnable, a play on the French verb 'façonner' — to shape or fashion. The rebrand captured the shift from single-client tailoring to a wearable, repeatable version of the same Riviera style: tailored but relaxed, built around the color and ease associated with the French Mediterranean coast. The Nice origin remains central to the brand's identity, with the label continuing to market itself around the phrase 'French Riviera since 1950.'
Alain Figaret launched his shirtmaking house in 1968, opening a Biarritz boutique first; the brand's dedicated shirt-only shop opened on Rue de la Paix in Paris in 1976 and remains its flagship, still vertically integrated from sourcing to retail.
Best for The Parisian everyday fine shirt.
Figaret Paris was founded by Alain Figaret in 1968. Its first boutique opened in Biarritz, and in 1970 the brand took a shop on Rue de Longchamp in Paris under the name Princeton. The first store devoted entirely to Figaret-branded shirts opened in 1976 on Rue de la Paix, and that address remains the brand's flagship today. In 1992 Fabrice Figaret joined the family business and pushed to consolidate and expand distribution, both within France and internationally. The company has stayed vertically integrated - controlling sourcing, production and its own retail network rather than outsourcing manufacturing, which is unusual among shirt specialists of its size.
Italian shirt brand named for and based in Portofino, on the Ligurian coast, positioned as 'Italian luxury since 1979'; known for washed cotton and denim shirts with a signature embroidered-sun chest motif, in a range of fading treatments from light to dark.
Best for Tuscan casual polos; Shirts, casual, Tuscan style
Giannetto Portofino takes its name from Portofino on the Italian Riviera, and its own site dates the brand to 1979 and describes it as based in that town. The shirts are made from cottons including honeycomb weave, denim and flannel, using washing and finishing techniques the brand calls 'sabbiature,' producing a faded, worn-in look. A recurring 'embroidered sun' motif on the chest functions as the brand's signature detail. Sourcing on the brand's manufacturing location is inconsistent: Giannetto's own marketing ties it closely to Portofino/Liguria, while at least one U.S. retailer describes the shirts as handmade in Naples.
The Ashland, Pennsylvania shirt factory behind Gitman Bros. and Gitman Vintage — American-made dress and casual shirts cut and sewn under one roof since 1978.
Best for American-made shirts with true factory provenance.
American-vintage-inspired shirt and casualwear label created by Yves Chareton in 1979 New York before relocating to Paris. Reworks 1950s Oxford and chambray shirting with a French cut; worn by Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton.
Best for Preppy polos, Parisian; Jersey soft polos; Paul preppy polos; Polos; Hunting, country
Hartford was created by Yves Chareton in 1979, starting in New York City, where Chareton had just finished business studies. The idea for the brand came out of a nightclub conversation with an old friend about finding real vintage 1950s-style American shirts. A chance encounter with a New York fabric dealer who sold him old stock of Oxford and chambray cloth gave Chareton the raw material for the first Hartford shirts. The studio later relocated to Paris, where the brand took its current commercial shape. Hartford's identity blends laid-back West Coast American style with European tailoring sensibility, winning a cult following including musicians Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton as noted fans.
German shirtmaker founded 1947 in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria, by Hans Tischler and son-in-law Hans Reiter, expelled from the Sudetenland; still family-run, now in its third generation, producing business and casual shirt lines.
Best for Bavarian business shirts and non-iron cotton
Hatico Mode GmbH was founded in 1947 in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria, by Hans Tischler and his son-in-law Hans Reiter, both expelled from the Sudetenland after the Second World War; the company began as an underwear factory before moving into shirts. It has remained family-owned through three generations, currently led by Joseph Reiter, and still manufactures in Tirschenreuth. The company runs three main shirt lines: Hatico Sport for casual wear, Hatico Essentials for non-iron business shirts, and Pure, a more technical collection launched in 1996.
Family-run New Jersey menswear label founded 1985 in Hackensack, known for extended-size tailoring, wool leisure suits and linen resort shirts sold nationwide.
Best for Resort shirts, linen
Inserch began in April 1985 as a boutique in Hackensack, New Jersey, in a predominantly African American and Latinx community where customers were looking for clothing they couldn't find at mainstream retailers. That demand shaped the brand's signature piece, a wool leisure suit, and set the template for what Inserch still does: pairing eclectic fabrics and colorways with classic menswear tailoring, cut in extended sizing. Family-owned and operated across four decades, the label expanded from its original leisure suits into a fuller menswear range that includes blazers, walking suits, and casual resort pieces such as linen camp shirts suited to vacation wear. Inserch has grown into a minority-owned brand carried nationwide and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and its designs have appeared in television productions including Pose and Barry. The resort shirting referenced in the prior listing is a real part of the current catalog, but it sits alongside a broader menswear offering rather than being the whole business.
Madrid shirt house since 1956 — Spanish-crafted dress shirts refined through precision and traditional technique.
Best for Spanish dress shirts.
Mirto was founded in 1956 by Ricardo Fragueas Álvaro, who recognized a gap in the Spanish market for varied, high-quality dress shirt offerings and established the brand to fill that void. For nearly seven decades, Mirto has maintained its position as a leading Spanish shirtmaker, building reputation on top designs and meticulous craftsmanship. Each shirt undergoes over 80 distinct processes, combining Spanish heritage sensibility with contemporary design. The brand sources the finest available fabrics and maintains control over every step of construction, ensuring exceptional quality, precision fit, and timeless style. Today, Mirto serves as an internationally recognized Spanish fashion brand for both men and women, though the core heritage remains rooted in shirting expertise. The label's longevity reflects consistency rather than trend-chasing: the same foundational commitment to quality that defined 1956 production continues to guide 2026 design.
Kansas City shirtmaker founded in 1946 by Nat Nast, credited with producing the first bowling shirt and its pleated 'Action Back'; sold off in the 1970s, then revived in 2000 by his daughters as Nat Nast Luxury Originals.
Best for Silk shirts, camp collar
Nat Nast the man founded his shirt company in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1946, and is widely credited within vintage-fashion circles as having produced the first bowling shirt, earning him the nickname 'The King of Bowling Shirts.' His shirts introduced inverted pleats known as the 'Action Back,' made from washable rayon, and the company grew a business supplying customized, embroidered shirts to bowling teams, sponsors, and colleges and universities. The original company was sold in the 1970s. In 2000, Nat Nast's two daughters revived the name as Nat Nast Luxury Originals, basing new designs on their father's originals but working in silk and adding embroidered artwork, repositioning the brand around camp-collar and bowling-shirt styling aimed at a nostalgia-driven, mid-century Americana aesthetic. The brand has since done licensed collaborations, including with the World Series of Poker.
German shirt maker founded in 1951 in Bietigheim-Bissingen by Eugen Bezner, who began production with six employees in his home's laundry room using surplus military fabric; broke through in 1988 with the non-iron OLYMP Luxor business shirt line and is still family-owned.
Best for Bulletproof non-iron shirts.
Olymp traces to 1951, when Eugen Bezner founded a shirt-making operation in Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany. Production began with six employees working out of the laundry room of his house, and early garments reportedly reused surplus military materials. The OLYMP label was developed in the mid-1950s by Bezner and his son. The brand's decisive commercial breakthrough came in 1988 with the OLYMP Luxor line, marketed around non-iron, crease-resistant business shirts. It remains a family-owned business, still headquartered and manufacturing in Bietigheim-Bissingen.
Family madras-cloth house founded 1973 in NYC's Garment District by Ranjit Shah, an emigre from Chennai; long supplied Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, J.Press and others, and still weaves madras on traditional Chennai handlooms today.
Best for Madras shirts
The Original Madras Trading Company was founded in 1973 by Ranjit Shah, who emigrated from Madras (now Chennai) to New York with a suitcase of fabric swatches. Within a few years he had established OMTC on West 38th Street in Manhattan's Garment District and secured supply contracts with major American menswear houses including Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Gant, J.Crew, J.Press, Tommy Hilfiger, and L.L. Bean. Madras is a cotton fabric hand-woven in checks and plaids, traditionally associated with the city of its origin; it entered American Ivy League style in the 18th century after Elihu Yale, then governor of British Madras, donated bolts of it to the university that took his name. Now run by Shah's grandson, Prasan, the company remains based in the same Garment District headquarters and still produces madras cloth on traditional handlooms in Chennai before finishing it into clothing.
Sartoria Formosa has cut bespoke clothes in Naples since 1965, when Mario Formosa founded the house now run by Gennaro Formosa. The atelier at Vico Cavallerizza a Chiaia 37 makes suits, overcoats, shirts and trousers to measure by appointment. Its signatures are the hand-sewn buttonhole and the soft Neapolitan sleeve. A Luxury Casual line adds denim shirts and cashmere knitwear, jeans or cloth trousers.
Best for Bespoke collar roll polos; Bespoke shirts, Neapolitan tailoring; Bespoke Suits
Sartoria Formosa marked sixty years of tailoring in Napoli in 2025. The house describes that span as a story made of hands and thread and measure. Mario Formosa founded it in 1965, and his son Gennaro Formosa carries it today. He receives clients personally at the atelier in Vico Cavallerizza a Chiaia. The house sets out its craft in a handful of details. The buttonhole is sewn by hand to a millimetre. The sleeve is set soft and natural so that the shoulder moves freely, and the tailors treat that as a matter of comfort as much as tradition. Lapels come in many cuts rather than one, chosen for proportion and character. The trousers are built by hand to clean lines. The stated aim is a suit that follows the body rather than reshaping it. Appointments are booked for a bespoke suit, a tailored overcoat or a made-to-measure shirt. Each visit begins with a consultation. Alongside the bespoke work the house runs a Luxury Casual line of denim shirts and cashmere knitwear, jeans or cloth trousers. These are cut with the same precision for everyday wear. The anniversary programme, in the words of the house, looks to a future of elegance rather than only to the past, and the family treats the sixtieth year as a starting point for the next generation of the atelier.
Spailpín has hand screen-printed Irish-language t-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts from its Spiddal Craft Village workshop in Connemara since 1979, alongside children's and baby clothing, books, stationery, art prints and instruments like tin whistles and bodhráns. It also offers DTF and sublimation printing for short runs.
1950s American shirt label revived by Japan's Toyo Enterprises, founded in Tokyo in 1965 by Susumu Kobayashi. Produces chain-stitched rayon aloha and western shirts made in Japan, reproducing the label's original vintage patterns.
Best for Rockabilly shirts, chain stitch
Star of Hollywood was a real American shirt label in the 1950s that went out of business and faded into obscurity outside vintage-clothing circles. Toyo Enterprises, a Japanese heritage-clothing company founded in Tokyo in 1965 by Susumu Kobayashi to make clothing for US military bases, later acquired rights to revive the name. Toyo is known for reproducing multiple defunct mid-century American labels this way, and under its ownership Star of Hollywood makes chain-stitched rayon aloha and western shirts, produced in Japan with close attention to period-accurate prints, cuts and open-collar styling - including a run of Elvis-themed designs. The shirts are sold through specialist reproduction and Japanese heritage-clothing retailers rather than under a single company storefront.
A custom tailor at Sukhumvit Soi 8 in Bangkok operating since 1983, making suits, shirts, trousers and jackets for men and dresses, blouses and skirts for women. Garments are cut from wool, cotton, linen, silk and mixed fabrics after in-person measurement.
Australian license of the US shirting brand Van Heusen, held by Gazal Corporation since 1976 and folded into a PVH-Gazal joint venture in 2014; the leading department-store business-shirt brand in Australia.
Best for Australian business shirts
Van Heusen's Australian business runs on a licensing arrangement rather than direct ownership by the brand's US parent. Gazal Corporation acquired the rights to manufacture and manage Van Heusen in Australia in 1976, and in 2014 that relationship was formalized into PVH Brands Australia, a joint venture between Gazal and PVH Corp, the New York company that owns Van Heusen, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Van Heusen is marketed in Australia as the top-selling business shirt brand in department stores, built on the original brand's history around the patented soft-folding collar introduced in the US in 1919. This is a licensed manufacturing and retail operation rather than an independent Australian house.
Polish shirt specialist established 1948. Wide range including cotton, Egyptian cotton, linen and easy-care dress shirts. Multi-generational heritage and modern fashion focus.
Best for Dress Shirts, Shirts
Wólczanka is a contemporary Polish fashion retailer with roots reaching to 1948, representing multi-generational tailoring expertise and 'millions of satisfied customers' across Eastern Europe. The company specializes in high-quality shirting and apparel for both men and women, describing itself as offering 'modern fashion for her and him.' Product range encompasses cotton shirts (both standard and mercerized), Egyptian cotton dress shirts, linen silhouettes, lyocell, satin cotton blouses, silk shirts, and low-iron easy-care options. The portfolio also includes polo shirts, t-shirts, sweaters in merino wool and other materials. The brand operates through boutique retail locations across Poland, leveraging production expertise refined through nearly 80 years of manufacturing. Wólczanka appeals to Central and Eastern European consumers seeking reliable, well-constructed shirting and apparel with proven heritage and value-market pricing—emphasizing durability and understated quality over luxury positioning.
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗