What happens when you hand us a shirt to alter
From chalk mark to final press: how our Mylapore tailors shorten a sleeve in about twenty minutes.
Linen, linen-cotton or mulmul: which one for you
Three fabrics, three different shirts. How each one feels, creases and wears through a Chennai year.
Most men who walk into the store know they want something cooler than polyester. Fewer know which of our three fabrics suits the way they live. Here is the short version we give at the counter.
Pure linen, our 60 lea, is the coolest of the three. It pulls sweat away from the skin and dries fast, and it looks better the more you wear it. The trade-off is creasing: a pure linen shirt will show every hour you sat in a car. It suits men who do not mind a lived-in look, and anyone who spends the afternoon outdoors.
Linen-cotton, our 55:45 blend, creases about half as much and holds a sharper line, which is why we use it for trousers. It is slightly warmer than pure linen and a little heavier, so the drape is cleaner. If you sit at a desk from nine to six, a linen-cotton trouser with a pure linen shirt is a sensible pair.
Mulmul is a fine, loosely woven cotton, softer than either linen and lighter in the hand. It does not have linen’s stiffness, so it falls close to the body and feels almost like nothing in May. It wrinkles softly rather than in sharp lines. We use two-ply mulmul for kurtas, because single-ply turns see-through when you sweat. If you are unsure, try one shirt in each fabric in the store and wear them on the same hot day; you will know by evening.
