Unbeatable quality for the price and they go up to size nineteen. (TM Lewin Shirts)

Member Name: Squishybot

Product:	TM Lewin Shirts
Date:	18/06/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, quality, price, variety of choice, did I mention price?

Disadvantages: You need patience with the iron, might be baggy on the slimmer man.

I'm a pretty big sort of chap - pushing six foot four tall and very nearly as wide with a nineteen inch collar. This means that I have a problem finding affordable shirts even in London. Marks and Sparks don't get a look in - they do make shirts that go round my neck but I can't do them up over chest or stomach, so they're out. High and Mighty make shirts that fit but at any price I'd class as affordable (this side of forty quid) the quality isn't quite there. Rochester are expensive *and* rubbish, and everywhere else easily found (short of having the things had made) stops at size eighteen.

So that leaves TM Lewin, a place that before last week I had not really bothered about simply because I assumed that they, like everyone else, would stop at eighteen.

Last Monday (mid 2009), however, I needed a pair of cheap cuff links for non-best purposes, and walking past their King's Road outlet, I noticed they had a sale on (do they ever not?) and had some respectable looking cuff links for sale for ten quid. Went in, found a pair, no problem, and then I see that the shirt rack does indeed go up to size nineteen.

Not overly optimistic - assuming they will be like Marks and Sparks and not do up, I asked to try on their demonstrator and was amazed to find that their classic fit did actually fit me. So now I'm actually looking at the shirts I see that I'm offered not Marks and Sparks size nineteen options of white white, white or white, but at least half a dozen different styles and colours - granted not as much as I could have had if I was a size seventeen but I realise I can't have everything. Bought two double cuffed shirts for fifty pounds *for both* although, granted that they are apparently sixty pounds each each when not in a sale, but I have a suspicion that their sales might be a bit DFS if you catch my drift.

So assuming that the sales are in the style of DFS I am reviewing the shirts as if they cost twenty five pounds each, not as if they cost sixty and for twenty five pounds a piece they are amazing. Granted they aren't top of Saville Row quality, but then they are only a tenth of Saville Row prices so it would be churlish to expect that. After a week, however, I can say that they are comfortable, strong and look good in the office. They are well stitched and made of decent quality cotton. They are cheaper and better looking most of the offerings of High and Mighty and Rochester.

It would be overly perfectionist to highlight any real disadvantages at this price but I would add a few words of caution for prospective buyers:

1. I, as mentioned, am very large and their shirts fit me. Therefore slim people may find their shirts a bit on the baggy side (although I gather there is a silm fit as well as classic fit, although obviously I have not been able to experience).

2. They are a little tricky to iron - you need maximum heat and for cuffs and collars ironing one side creases the other (non-fused, apparently) - so take a hint from me and only iron the visible side.

Other than that, however, and the advice to never every buy them full price (if that's even possible), these are extremely good shirts for the money and actually extremely good shirts for a quite a bit more money and I would recommend them certainly for large men such as me, and quite possible for TWENTY FIVE POUNDS PER SHIRT for everybody else too.

Summary: Excellent variety of quality shirts in a huge variety of sizes all for a very good price.