AT 5-foot-8, Peter Manning isn’t remarkably short. Still, he said, he has struggled to find clothes that fit him well since he was 10. “My pants always had to be shortened,” Mr. Manning said. Over the years, he guessed that he has paid hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in what he called a “tailor tax.”

Special clothing exists for big and tall men, he noted, adding, “Why would you ignore a demographic that is equally as large?”

According to a 2008 report by the National Center for Health Statistics, more than a quarter of American men age 20 and over are 5-foot-8 or shorter.

Image Peter Manning is designing clothes for men his height, 5-foot-8. Credit... Yana Paskova for The New York Times

So, Mr. Manning, 44, a Tony Award-winning producer and real estate developer from Manhattan, did what any entrepreneur sensing an untapped need would do: he started his own clothing line.