I recently tried Jake’s shirts for the first time, after a few years of knowing Jake Wigham but assuming his softly made, straight cut wouldn’t be for me. A lot of friends wear and love them however, including Lucas, Alex and Jamie, and it was that that swayed me.

Jake started the company during Covid when his work as a trouser maker lessened. He had gone to London College of Fashion to study bespoke tailoring, and started work for a few Savile Row tailors soon after including Steed, Steven Hitchcock and Richard Anderson.

In fact, the first time I met Jake was just after Covid, when he was on his way to John Simons on Chiltern Street; Jake made face masks and some Ivy-inspired ‘fun’ shirts for the shop.

Ivy style has always been a big influence for Jake, and that’s obvious as soon as you see his imagery, workshop and indeed the shirts. It’s why he favours unstructured collars, six-button fronts and good collar roll.

Jake makes all his shirts to order. It’s a model that makes sense because he’s small, so he can’t necessarily afford to hold lots of stock, but also means he can be flexible. All the shirts are made individually, with Jake doing the sewing and his apprentice Albert the cutting (both above, respectively).

This doesn’t mean they’re made to measure though. Rather, Jake starts with a set of sized try-ons and then customers alter the body and sleeve length, as well as of course picking the cloth. He’s made a few over the years with PS Oxfords and our Selvedge Chambray.

Jake has a little workshop in London’s Soho, a couple of flights up, and I tried on a couple of sizes before we settled on a size 15.5 neck. The body length was pretty good, but we added a couple of centimetres to the sleeve length.

I picked a Thomas Mason linen, which was particularly fine, and the shirt was £285. That's with a Thomas Mason cloth in particular though - shirts in stock cloths that Jake has in the workshop are £205.

My shirt was precisely as ordered (not always a given) and as a casual, easy shirt I liked the unlined collar, placket and cuffs. (Jake doesn’t do linings.)

The thing that was most interesting though was the body fit, as I’ve never had a shirt that was cut so straight – with no shaping through the waist in the side seams, let alone darts.

As regular readers will know, I’m relatively slim and even if I’m doing a simple MTM shirt from somewhere like Bryceland’s, I’ll usually take one size down in the waist compared to what I have in the chest and shoulders.

The shirt looks pretty big on me as a result, particularly in the side-on shot below – a straight cut from the shoulders looks a little tent-like. This is, however, what a lot of more relaxed ready-made shirts are like on me.

The Rubato work shirts are like this for example, and so I tend to go for the 'R' shirt instead, or have the work shirts slimmed a little. On people like Alex and Lucas this shape also works better as their proportions are different.

I’ve also realised in wearing the shirt the last few months how much it’s a question of style.

That may sound obvious, but sometimes it’s only when you wear a style different from your own that you start to get some perspective - on both your normal style and the new one.

After all, Jake himself is slim but likes this bigger, slightly blowsier look. And Alex and Lucas trend in that direction as well. I’m a bit of an exception really, having come from an idea of very closely fitted shirts and tailoring, and only recently relaxed a bit.

You can see that styling element more with the shots of the shirt tucked in, like the one below. In some ways it’s quite a flattering look, though one that feels more period (80s/90s) and perhaps more fashiony in that way too.

The pockets are the first time I’ve had large, flapped ones on a shirt, but I think they compliment the look, as well as perhaps suiting the proportions. My 501s are relatively close fitting, and a more relaxed fit might also make for less of a contrast with the shirt.

The make itself is nice – nothing fancy, all machine but neat and consistent – and Jake likes a good mother-of-pearl button.

Compared to other shirtmakers, one of Jake’s other big attractions is his sense of style, and that comes across in new tweaks to his design as well as working with interesting cloths.

He’s done fun shirts in a variety of different materials, used block prints, does camp collars in different designs, and done collaborations with Peplord, cartoonist Dick Carroll and Alex (the ‘Explorer’ shirt, modelled after the presenter Michael Palin). Some of those are below.

I’m looking forward to trying my shirt more over the summer, particularly as it looks to be a hot one and this very open linen will feel lovely. It is a little translucent, but the pockets help quite a bit there – something I hadn’t really considered.

I also always enjoy having my horizons widened, and experiencing others’ style more closely. It always ends up having some kind of effect on how I dress myself, even if I don’t follow that new style exactly. It may well be that some of Jake’s other designs end up being the ones that hit the sweet spot.

Jake’s shirts start at £205 and are all made to order. He doesn’t do regular trunk shows but did visit Alfargo’s in New York recently. He is now also starting to offer made-to-order, high-rise chinos.

There is a good run-down of the shirt styles on the website here. The Gallery is also a good place to see a range of the different styles and materials.