Perfectly Fitting Flannel and Chinos for Muscular Men- Woodies Clothing Co Review.
I don’t know about you, but my clothing shopping experiences have almost never been great. Either I go to a store, try on about 30 items and leave with one if I am lucky or the alternative is that I spend hours online checking size charts, place an order online, receive it and return all of the items because none of them fit well. These two situations have been my experience for as long as I can remember. When I do find clothing that fits, I purchase the same thing in multiple colors. Recently I placed an order online for flannel and a pair of chinos. They arrived and fit ok, but not great. I filled out a form of what didn’t fit well, and the company contacted me asking about everything I would like adjusted for a perfect fit. Just three weeks later a brand new flannel and pair of chinos arrived at my door, and they fit perfectly! This was by far the best shopping experience I have ever had, and you want to know the best part? I can order from this site and have every single item on their site sent to me with a fit made for my body. If you are a muscular man I know you are curious at this point, today we are doing a review of Woodies Clothing Co.
Who is Woodies Clothing Co.?
First, let's talk about who Woodies is. Woodies is a company I have spoken about before; they are an online Made-to-Measure company. There are no ‘standard sizes,’ just your size, so there is a little extra work required on your part, but once you do that work you are set to get perfectly fitting clothing everytime you order! Think about it, how many different shapes and sizes do men find themselves in? Now, how many of those men do you think actually fit perfectly into a small, medium, large or extra large? Woodies recognizes this and wants to make shopping easier than spending weeks trying to find a perfect fit in a store, and yes I have spent weeks and even months trying to find a piece of clothing that fits perfectly.
What Does Woodies offer?
Woodies offers a wide range of clothing. If they fit your style, you really could have all of your shirts and pants/shorts/jeans (minus your suiting) in your wardrobe from them and have a complete wardrobe. Once you get your profile is dialed in you can order dress and casual button downs, flannels, short sleeve button downs, chinos and shorts all made entirely for you. No more searching for that mythical perfect fit in the store or paying the tailor tax to get them to fit. I live in a cold climate and love the rugged, refined look, so I find myself turning to flannels and chinos quite frequently. That being said Woodies has become my gold standard for quality and fit in both of these items.
My Experience
The Dark Grey Double Sided Flannel
Grey Houndstooth Flannel (link for blue)
For my first order at Woodies, I want to get a flannel in preparation for the winter months. I appreciate the little details, so I spent a little bit more to get the Dark Grey Double Sided Flannel. The main difference here is that the inside of the shirt has a second fabric that is a navy and white houndstooth. I like to roll my sleeves up often so adds a unique touch to a well put together look. You have 4-6 options for customization on the shirt. There are five collar options to choose from. I'm not too fond of floppy or soft collars, so I went with a spread collar. With the spread collar, whether casual or dress, there are collar stay pockets to keep the collar looking sharp. Then there are four options for the cuff, short sleeve, french cuff, and rounded or mitered cuffs. I love the sharp edges of the mitered cuffs, so I went with that. If you have a hard time deciding, I would default to either the barrel or mitered. If you need a white dress shirt with french cuffs or want shorts sleeves go for it, but I would get a nice long sleeve dialed in before going to the other options. Next, you have the options of a pocket and monograms, I never add pockets or monograms to my shirts, but that is just my personal preference. There are also two additional customizations for your placket and pleats. These will be chosen as a standard for you unless you have a preference. I decided to leave them alone and see how they would turn out, in this case, it was perfect. The beautiful part about this process is you have enough options with picture examples to help you get a great shirt, and it takes less than a minute to complete.
My order arrived 19 days after I placed it. That was much faster than I was expecting! This is clothing made specifically for me after all. The first thing I noticed was the quality of the fabric, it was several steps above any of the other flannels I have purchased before. The color has a depth that just isn’t there in a cheaper fabric. I tried it on, and the body and length fit me perfectly! I was stunned, only to see that there were a few things that needed to be adjusted. First off the chest and arms were much too large. Also, I always wear a watch on my right wrist, and I was unable to button up the cuff. During the measuring process, I had done the measurements myself and had not watched the sizing videos all the way through. Come to find out a large portion of the size error, was due to how I measured.
When I took my measurements, I did several things wrong, all of which could have been solved by having someone help me and following the videos provided in the sizing section. First I measured my arm with it touching my side. That added an inch to the measurement. I corrected it to 16,” and the team at woodies took it down to 15” based on the pictures, which fit perfectly in case you were worried. Next, I had measured my chest too high, also adding an inch. Finally, I added a note to add 0.25 inches to my right cuff for my watch. During your size correction process, you will describe your concerns with the fit and attach some pictures so the team can assess for themselves. I later received an email asking about the rest of the fit. The remakes arrived 3 weeks later and fit perfectly in every way. It did take a bit of time, but I have never been more impressed by the fit and quality of any shirt.
The Navy Stretch Chinos
For chinos, there are three options: stretch, performance or classic. I went with the stretch based on price and qualities. The performance chinos also stretch, which was my main concern, but for the additional cost, they didn't offer anything that I needed. The pants are even more straightforward to order than the shirts are. Here you have three options to customize. With shirts, the possibilities are more personal taste, with the pants I am going to recommend the way I think you should set them up unless you already know what you like. First, you will want a flat front; pleats are not flattering on a muscular man, they do provide more room for your thighs but getting a custom size will fix that issue. Second I would go with the flat pockets, but you can choose the flap pockets if you like, but the flat pocket is a cleaner look in my opinion. Last, of all go with a plain hem, you can get cuffs on suit pants if you like them, but for chinos, I would shy away from that option. It is as easy as that, and if you want to see what those options look like again, there are pictures provided when you are customizing them to give you a better idea.
The pants arrived with the flannel in both shipments. I was impressed again by the quality and fit of the chinos. I purchased some chinos earlier this year that I was told were excellent quality and fit for a muscular man. I returned them because both the quality and fit were not what I expected. Woodies, however, delivered on both fronts! The issue I had with my first try on again, came from my own error in measuring and were fixed in the remake.
With the measuring process for pants, there are four measurements you will need to make, there are also three more technical measurements if you really know what you want. The four main measurements you will need are your: waist, hips, thigh and inseam. I did make some mistakes when doing the measuring and they could have been mostly fixed by asking for help and following the videos. My only error for the pants was that I measured too high on my thigh and did not relax my leg during the measurement. That caused my first set of chinos to look like balloon pants. I watched the measurement videos and realized that had added 1.5,” and I corrected it. Based on my pictures, however, the Woodies team corrected by 2.5” which really scared me. That fear was unfounded though as the remakes fit perfectly!
One last note on the pants I like a slimmer leg opening but have found that any pants with a leg opening smaller than my calf are always too slim. I let Woodies know about this concern on chat, and they assured me that the leg open would work for me based on my other measurements. Despite being 2” smaller than my calf, the leg opening was perfect, and I have never had pants that looked better.
Grey Double Sided Flannel and Navy Stretch Chinos
Perfect Fit Guarantee.
I wanted to touch on Woodies' guarantee for a moment because I think this really does set them apart. For MTM clothing I would rank Woodies in the middle of the list when it comes to pricing. With that being said the only companies that I know of that offer clothing for cheaper either have lower quality clothing or have a terrible remake policy. At Woodies if your first order is off no matter who is at fault, likely you in the measuring process, they will remake the order. Several other places I have looked will only remake the clothing if they did not make it to your measurements. That means if you are off you will pay for the alterations and the shipping there and back. That really defeats the perks of going with MTM over going to your tailor. If you do find a MTM company that you want clothing from I strongly suggest you order from Woodies first to get your measurements dialed in and then if you still want to try that other company, measure the items you purchased from Woodies for the garment measurements. Likely you will find that you want to stick with Woodies, but I am not judging if you're going to branch out.
Conclusion
All in all, I am incredibly impressed with Woodies. I have other companies I am going to do some reviews on, but my experience at Woodies has made me take a second look before ordering. I know that I can get exactly what I want in fit, quality, and style from Woodies and I base my current buying decisions with that knowledge.
The moral of the story is that if you have a hard time finding clothing that fits you well, I would suggest you order an outfit from Woodies. You will not regret it, and you will look sharp everytime you wear it!
A final note, I have noticed that over the months there are slight things I would change on both my flannel and chinos. That being said I think it is vital that you to only order one shirt or pant at first. Get the fit 'perfect' and take note over a few weeks of any changes you would make. Honestly, the changes I would make are very small, but for me, the details make all the difference.
Zach Mitchem
I have been lifting weights for over 15 years and have been a competitive weightlifter and powerlifter. I have had issues with finding clothes that fit properly for as long as I can remember. In 2017 I stepped up my style game in a serious way and realized there are very few decent options for muscular men at the average online or brick and mortar store. I started a journey to find options that fit the muscular man, and the start of the 'Muscular Style' blog was born.
I write about style with the intent to help you avoid all the wasted time and frustration I have encountered in my journey. I want you to be able to buy quality clothing that fits well. Currently, I work as a professional clothier at Smith Bespoke in Salt Lake City and have made helping men dress better into my career.