It’s increasingly rare to find a store that offers both a broad-ranged selection of traditional dress staples—sport coats, suits, year-round wool pants, Italian-made footwear, dress shirts, cufflinks—and an equally fine range of natty casual shirts, twills, and even bowties in every pattern, colorway, and permutation you could possibly imagine. It’s even more rare that the same store carries stock to fit the tall slim fellow, the tall athletic fellow, and even the big and tall fellow—and offers him not just a double-breasted suit in his size, but a 100% wool Donegal tweed suit, a cotton velvet check sport coat, 11 pages of dress shirts, houndstooth flannel pants, and even a two-tone oxford boot that would do any modern gentleman proud. This rarified range, breadth, quality, affordability, and handsomeness is the purview of none other than Paul Fredrick.

Founded over 25 years ago in Pennsylvania and originally specializing in a small line of premium dress shirts (launched with a 1986 ad in the Wall Street Journal offering shirts direct-from-manufacturer), Paul Fredrick has since expanded their line significantly, but still designs, manufactures, and directly distributes every item in the collection—no wholesalers, storefronts, middlemen, or nonsense entailed. This allows for year-after-year consistency in the product that customers have come to expect from the brand, as well as attention to precision in fit—the sleeve lengths on Paul Fredrick’s tall dress shirts are uniquely measured to the inch (with up to a 38″ sleeve), plus each of the dress shirt styles has roughly 55 size variations for that next-to-custom fit, offered up at a price point significantly below bespoke (and with much better variety to boot).

It’s rare that—as a woman—I’m ever envious of the tall men I know when it comes to style choices. But having seen, styled, and photographed two Paul Fredrick shirts (one dress, one casual) and the same year-round wool blazer on two of our men’s team members (one in his 30s, the other in his…40s…), my conclusion is thus: Paul Fredrick is a you-have-to-know-about-this-company hit in terms of tall men’s offerings, with the level of variety, quality, and versatility that may very well be enough to provoke envy—while most certainly gaining admiration—from all the ladies in your lives.

Ted is wearing the Paul Fredrick 2-Ply Cotton Mini Grid Spread Collar French Cuff Dress Shirt, $39.95 (on sale), c/o Paul Fredrick, and the 100% Wool Two-Button Travel Blazer in Pearl Gray, $219.50 (on sale), c/o Paul Fredrick.

By Ted Page

Usually when I get in the passenger seat of someone’s car for the first time, they notice that my knees are up around my chin, so they say, “That seat goes back.” But the seat is already back. The same is also true for most jackets and shirts I try on—they’re pushed as far back as they’re going to go, and if they fit, it’s just barely. Sometimes I end up looking like I’ve been put through the dryer.

That’s why this jacket/shirt combination from Paul Fredrick was a pleasant departure. Both are well made, with nice, natural materials and attractive colors. The grey jacket looks professional, but not like I work in the accounting department (no offense to my wonderful son-in-law, who does in fact work in accounting). The shirt, with a French cuff, has a similar professional yet not-too-conservative look. They complement each other.

But what I liked the most was that I didn’t feel like I was crammed into these clothes. They somehow fit well without feeling baggy, and without that sense that I was about to pop a button. The Paul Fredrick catalog is also notable in that they actually have a wide variety of styles for tall men, versus the tall gulag many companies send us to that may have one or two sizes that fit us.

Well said, Ted!