MATTHEW YGLESIAS: GET SOME DRESS SHIRTS THAT FIT! “I want to address the young men of America on the subject of buttoning your top button and wearing a necktie: If this is uncomfortable, that’s because your shirt doesn’t fit. It is annoying that simple S/M/L/XL sizing makes it kind of a crapshoot as to whether any given dress shirt will have appropriate length sleeves for your arms and fit your midsection and also your neck. But if you go to Brooks Brothers or Charles Tyrwhitt (just to name two stores that exist in most cities), they size their shirts with separate neck and arm lengths, and you can get one that fits. Or you can go to Proper Cloth or another “made to measure” place where they’ll sell you a shirt that fits exactly. Unfortunately, all of these options are a little more expensive than what you’ll pay for a shirt that doesn’t fit. But you either don’t need to wear a tie very often, in which case getting one shirt that fits is not a major investment, or else you do need to wear a tie frequently, in which case you shouldn’t be uncomfortable all the time.”

This is good advice.

I have always had a fairly big neck, even when I was skinny and didn’t lift weights; when I was in college I generally covered that my top button wasn’t buttoned by pulling my tie up. Now that I do lift weights, my neck is big (19 inches), and shirts sized for my neck fit me like a tent since they assume you have a big neck because you’re fat, not because you do high pulls and deadlifts and farmer’s carries. I get some shirts custom made at a local fancy clothing shop. I don’t wear a tie all that often, but that means that when I do, the occasion is important and I want to look nice. Shirts that fit aren’t that much more expensive, and they look a lot better. In fact, I remember John Malloy of Dress for Success fame saying that most people can’t tell much difference between an okay suit and an expensive one, but that it’s easy to tell the difference between a cheap shirt and an expensive one.