The long and shirt of it

What makes a man’s shirt is often what is unseen — the stitching, the puckering (or lack of), the little slots at the back of the collar points. For the bespokesman, a shirt is more than scraps of cloth sewn together, but an architectural object whose form follows mathematical functions and whose precise simplicity belies the complicated path it took to arrive there. Abdul Salam is a well-read shirtmaker — his workshop is littered with vintage menswear magazines, an Esquire manual of style and various Japanese clippings. His bible is Shirtmaking by David Page Coffin, which he studied thoroughly when he felt that the six-month crash course he took in tailoring at a local fashion school just didn’t give him the exact fit he wanted to achieve. After a year on his own of cutting and sewing, of “digging deeper” and ripping apart all his old shirts to see how they worked, Abdul opened up shop and began offering custom-made shirts to a younger market who appreciated a good slim fit, basic, classic design and fabrics that make sense in our environment. He’s not your daddy’s tailor to be sure — with Kalinga tattoos and a scruffy goatee, this California-bred 26-year-old looks like he could be beating up little kids with a skateboard, not handcrafting fine shirts for dapper men. Here’s Salam in his own words:

• “I was really into fashion growing up. After college, I moved to San Francisco and worked in retail for three and a half years. I was just at a point when I needed to choose something to do for the rest of my life. I’m not an office type, I know that much — I like to sleep all morning and work all night. I figured I could do this for the rest of my life.”

• “I love the look of a well-suited man. It’s really sharp. It’s not for me, though. My whole philosophy for design is really to make clothes that suit this climate. I think we lack that here. The first coat I want to make is a deconstructed coat made out of linen or seersucker coat with no lining. It’s what pretty much blew up Giorgio Armani in the ’70s. He took it from Neapolitan tailors, who took it from British tailoring and deconstructed it.”

• “At this moment, I don’t do much surface design. People might not like it after a few months. I don’t think there are enough conservative menswear brands here. I really like to keep it basic and a lot of the people who come to me do, too.”  

• “Tailoring here is so basic, I don’t think it’s gone further than from pattern to construction to sewing. Little things like the interfacing I use for the collar, a floating canvas. It’s standard practice to use fuse here, which you glue directly on the fabric, and it makes it easier to sew. But it ruins the collar in the wash. My tailor has 43 years of experience but has never come across a floating canvas before.”

• “Since I only have one tailor and he does about a shirt a day, I’d say the whole process takes about three weeks. There are three fittings. You come in and I measure you. I take around 18 measurements for a shirt. The whole idea is to create a more accurate reference.”

• “I don’t tuck my shirts in.”

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You can reach Abdul at iamdeerhunter@gmail.com.