Fashion & Fit: Challenges for Tall Men Through the Ages

Guest Blog by Phil Williamson, Altus Menswear Vice President and Director of Marketing:

Sure, we were all fashion-challenged when I was a young man in the late 1970s and early 80’s. Platform shoes, bell-bottoms and those rayon shirts with the cowboy motifs on them were horrific enough (less we forget the mullet). But for me, it was an especially awkward time.

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6’4” is not that tall these days but back then I definitely stood out and was self-conscious about my gangly physique. For me, the style atrocities of that era were further compounded by a total and complete lack of any clothes that remotely fit me. There were no Big & Tall stores or tall choices at the department stores that I recall. So, as evident in the picture below, most everything I wore, was either way to short or way too baggy (and still too short).

These days there are more choices for specialty sizes, thanks in large part to the Internet, but tall guys that are not “big” still have to work too hard to find clothes that fit. I can get by, but I still shop by size first and will usually purchase whatever fits rather than worry about style. But at 6’8”, my son Carter has really struggled to find anything that fits – especially casualwear. A generation later and the sizing challenges for thin and athletically built, tall guys continue.

And so Altus Menswear was founded with the goal of providing tall and extra-tall guys a convenient shopping experience, where they can find a line of great looking, classic styles, that fit (even after they are washed). 

Styles will come and go (hopefully the 70s and 80s will just go) but a tall man in well fitting clothes is very striking so get noticed for all of the right reasons. 

The author, back in the 80's, wearing way-too-small and not-so-classic apparel.

The author, last week, in his classic Levis with an Altus Menswear, well-fitting, shirt.