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Raleigh (Classic) Menswear Stores Review

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    Teddy Xinyuan Chen
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Ealdwine

Downtown Raleigh. The owner knows stuff (surgeon's cuff, canvas interlining, fabric).

Beautiful fabrics!

They take your measurements in store and send to the maker, like Coppley in Canada. For sport coats, this costs from $800.

They also have quite some laced up / wingtip boots on display, but personally I do not like the styles.

The jackets in store are all half-canvassed, it feels good knowing that they don't put in glue for sturctures.

Kannon's (Village District)

https://kannonsclothing.com/ , "family owned".

Kannon's pink sport coat with beautiful lapel rolls
Silk pocket squares that don't look cheap | Knit polo

I think they have an in-house tailor, who looks like an old gentleman.

Brooks Brothers

If you don't know Brooks Brothers, they are an American staple and they made suits for Abraham Lincoln. Price is high and the jackets don't feel very cheap.

Love the madras bow tie / madras silk pocket square, and the red, brown, cream paisley tie!

The Crabtree Valley Mall store. Store's not large and collection is limited, but I use their online listings to get inspiration.

Only 1 kind of cuff links, and they're sold together with the shirts. No collar bars. Peak lapels only seen on their tuxedos (btw, they look awful).

They have the classic blue and white striped seersucker jacket which I like.

They seem to use a lot of wool blends.

I love their ties and decoration! They even have an attache case in store, it was fun to play with. :)

Ties | I like bow ties more, but I took this photo for the book so they're not in it.
I'm a fan of vintage fashion illustrations!

Raleigh Denim Workshop

Store's in warehouse district in downtown, all brick. Very classic.

I got my first pair of jeans here for $100 (cheapest item in store. The people working there are very friendly and helpful). Raw denim. Free hemming if you buy them there.

However, the crotch is too high for me so I later got them tailored for another $20. They don't look as good as before, but way more comfortable now.

The decoration is creative and nice too. They have vintage sewing machines, and a demonstration of how raw denim changes afters years of wearing.

They also have lots of non-denim OCBDs and lots of denim jackets, denim shirts and denim-everything.

Clarks

My Story with Clarks

I bought my first pair of dress shoes from Clarks in the department store in Wujiaochang, Shanghai and I only wore it once (for an occasion). I also got a belt from there. What a waste of money!

My 2nd pair of Clarks are brown suede loafers with boat shoe like toes and they're very comfortable, I even wear them on hikes. I wear them every day if it's not raining and I don't expect to walk on mud.

The Store

Clarks at Crabtree. We don't have a lot of shoe stores here, the other one I went to is the one on Hillborough and that one's overpriced.

Clarks are comfortable but the shoes they have on display are too limited, so I prefer to what they got on their website.

But it's fun to see the desert boots (sand-colored suede / brown leather chukka boots) in person!

The wingtip shoes you see here (3rd pic only) have very stiff soles that feels like woods, and don't feel comfortable.

They also have slip-on's and strap-on's (good for beach, I guess).

Clarks Fun Facts

Vintage Stores

I've been to a few but they do not focus on classic menswear, so I got nothing to comment.

Off-Price Stores (Marshalls)

Marshalls at Crossroads, good for returning your online purchases. The in-store collection is trash, probably because it's in a poor neighborhood.

Trash

  • Jos. A Bank (Village District): from ties to jackets they're all god awful, and some sales people dress very sloppy. I guess the store's for rich people with awful taste or emergencies.
  • Men's Warehouse (Crossroads): Yikes. This is the place where mom's take their son's to get measured and buy something that's not t-shirt and jeans.
  • Target: Target is awesome but you shouldn't expect to find quality clothes here.
  • Uptown Cheapstake (2nd hand store, Mission Valley): Jesus, don't waste your time here!
  • Macy's (Crabtree store, Bar III, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein): I feel they're only slightly better than Jos A Bank. Tommy's quality is slightly higher but there's nothing good in store.

What's Missing

  • Good vintage stores (Asheville has many very, very large vintage stores with actual good stuff, I got my braided belt at just ~$10.)
  • Hat stores (No place to buy fedoras in Raleigh)
  • Stores that I wish were within the beltline: Nordstrom, Saks, outlets, Ralph Lauren (it seems that they only want to open stores in NYC)
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