Reader Question: Homemade Stay Slots

Reader:

Hey SB. Nice blog. I rarely read Esquire but saw you there. Congrats on the "best dressed" award.

Further to the issue of the "floppy collar", several of my favorite shirts don't have sewn-in slots for collar-stays. I've had my tailor iron in some stiff fabric to one of them as a test but it didn't work. These are Martin & Osa shirts - not the best but they fit me and my style well. Any thoughts as to how I can stiffen up the collars?

Thanks!

SB:

Hey, thanks for reading. A while back I also came across this problem, where my collars were "floppy" and they didn't have slots for collar stays. I brought these shirts to my local dry-cleaners/alterations place and simply had the seamstress sew some makeshift collar stay slots onto the underside of the collars. It worked out well and now I can pop in my metal collar stays (or, even better, the magnetic ones I wrote about not long ago) and my collars stand at attention.

As a tip, try one shirt first to see if you like the way it comes out, and bring a shirt with built-in collar stay slots with you to the seamstress to show as an example before any sewing begins.

Hope this helps. Yours in style, SB.