Being just over 6ft 7in (201cm) has its advantages. For one, I can see everything at gigs. I can spot friends in the distance over a crowd of faces. I can pass porn magazines down to shorter perverts. But equally, there are disadvantages: I can never blend into a crowd; I once got smacked up the back of a head by an inflatable sofa at a Travis gig at V festival; I have to bend down to walk through any doorway; I was once laughed at by a grown woman in Sainsbury’s who pointed me out to her children so they could call me a freak (people often assume the tall are also deaf); And, for the longest time, I wore the most ill-fitting clothes you could imagine.
In fact, when you’re tall you get used to clothes never quite fitting properly. I have a very long body with long arms – think a fully elongated Stretch Armstrong – so in the summer, T-shirts tend to skim my naval. At school, I’d be the kid who had the only pair of trousers without the fashionable turn-up sewn in, my mum having unpicked it to give me an extra inch. Born in an era when having a trouser-sock ratio that screamed Michael Jackson was no longer a positive thing, the phrase “ankle swingers” was shouted in my direction far too often. Jackets would often fit in the body but not the arms, while jeans would fit in the leg but would need an industrial-strength belt to save my blushes. As a general rule, I avoided jeans altogether because they were so uncomfortable, with high-street stores in particular a no-go area. For a while I lived in Joe Bloggs jogging bottoms from the local market; the elasticated waist and cuffs – as well as slapdash approach to sizing – were a godsend.
There is, of course, a market for tall men, one that has been answered by High & Mighty, a sort of high-street lifesaver for the physically obtuse. There we could all be tall or slightly overweight or tall and slightly overweight together, but at that time the clothes looked like something my old history teacher might have worn. Often I’d be walking past and I’d see the staff get all excited, edging closer to the door, only for me to stroll on by to try and stretch out a pair of chords until they reached the tops of my Gola trainers. Shops such as H&M, Uniqlo and Topman have all started to cater more for the changing shape of men’s bodies in recent times. Next have a Longer & Larger range, and Debenhams, BHS and Marks & Spencer’s offer a Big & Tall line (yes, the names are incredibly patronising), while American brands like Levi’s make jeans that seem to come up bigger in the leg without meaning the waist does, too. But all feel a little restricted with that they offer.
One thing I’ve never had any luck with is suits. Being a freelancer means I don’t necessarily need to get dressed at all, so the only time I need a suit is for a wedding or a funeral. Being a freelancer also means that I’ve always been put off by how expensive a proper tailored suit would be, which often leads to me cobbling together a mismatched outfit from some trousers that happen to fit and a jacket that was previously owned by someone with really long arms. In most wedding pictures, I look like a slightly more haphazard Jarvis Cocker. So I was intrigued to hear about Ted Baker’s T for Tall range, an online collection (although a concession will be in their Covent Garden store from the end of May) that takes select pieces from the main range and makes them bigger. While this isn’t exactly new, it does, in theory, allow tall men the chance to wear slightly better tailored and expensive-looking items with confidence.
I’m advised in-store to first try on some light blue chinos. The trousers are paired with a smart shirt that looks like Laura Ashley wallpaper come to life. It isn’t exactly an outfit I would chose to wear, but I’m ready to experiment. Immediately, the trousers don’t fit. The leg length is fine, but the 34 inch waist won’t do up. Having been called a “lanky streak of piss” by many a school bully, this is somewhat surprising, and it’s quite demoralising to hear that this is due to the trousers being from the “slim fit” range. I quickly swap the chinos for some “dad jeans”, the sort that are made out of a glossy denim and go straight down to the ankle rather than tapering. Again, not really my thing, but they fit really well, and by the time I’m given a navy reversible jacket, I’m feeling quite “Premiership footballer on a weekend off” about it all.
Then it’s time for the suit and let me tell you, dear reader, it was a thing of beauty. In all the ways it’s normal for everyone else – the trousers fitting around the waist, the sleeves on the jacket skimming the wrist perfectly, the length of the jacket matching every other element – it was a joyous novelty for me. Immediately, I felt more confident and more relaxed.
Nowadays, I shop mainly in Topman for shirts and jumpers, Uniqlo for basics and American Apparel when they have a sale on. All my jeans are from Levi’s because I’ve found the style that fits and so, no, I’m never letting them go (511, 34 leg and 34 waist, in case you’re interested). But otherwise it’s hard to find specific tall-friendly pieces. Perhaps the main difference is that T for Tall aims to cater not just for the tall, but for the tall and oddly shaped. So I feel less worried about lifting my arms up in a T-shirt and displaying my apparently burgeoning belly, while some customers who are shorter than the start height for the range (6ft 3in, with the maximum being 6ft 8in; waist sizes are 34–42in) choose to buy shirts from this range purely because they’re made with longer arms.
When asked why the range doesn’t move beyond the market already covered by most high-street shops and go up to, say, 6ft 10in, the reason is simple economics: there aren’t enough people that tall for it to work. As Thomas Killman, senior menswear buyer, says, it would make it “a little more niche and specialised”. After the shoot and after begrudgingly handing back the beautiful suit, I learn about Ted’s Tall Tribe, a social media initiative that involves creating a group (tower?) of tall people and spreading the word about the range. After over 30 years of standing out, I quite like the idea of blending in.
