T.M. Lewin vs Hockerty: which dress shirt is actually worth it?
Side by side on the specifications that decide how a shirt looks after a year: the collar interlining, how the size is arrived at, the cloth, and the price each brand actually advertises rather than the one on the ticket.
Hockerty delivers more shirt per dollar than T.M. Lewin
Hockerty scores 77/100 on specification per dollar against 41/100 for T.M. Lewin. The score weighs two things a shirt is actually judged on after a year: the collar interlining and how the size is arrived at. T.M. Lewin does not publish its collar interlining, so there is nothing there to check. Price is the lowest per-shirt figure each brand advertises itself, not a list price neither of them expects you to pay.
- Lower advertised price: Hockerty — $69 against $86 a shirt
- Fit control: Hockerty — Questionnaire-derived size against neck + sleeve length
| Specification | T.M. Lewin | Hockerty |
|---|---|---|
| List price, one shirtWhat a single shirt costs at full price. | $1151 | $694 |
| Lowest advertised priceThe per-shirt price the brand itself promotes — its multi-buy ladder or standing sale. | $861 | $69 (no multi-buy)4 |
| Collar interliningA glued collar is what bubbles and curls after a year of washing. Most brands decline to say which theirs is. | Not published by the brand12 | Not published by the brand4 |
| How the size is decidedAlpha sizing asks you to fit the shirt; a drafted pattern fits the shirt to you. | Neck + sleeve length21 | Questionnaire-derived size54 |
| Cloth | Twill, poplin, oxford, herringbone, dogstooth and dobby, mostly cotton with some wool blend, in both non-iron and easy-to-iron finishes. No ply or yarn count is published anywhere on the listing. Royal oxford is not offered.1 | Over 100 shirt fabrics, with cotton poplin, twill and linen blends named. Ply, yarn count, cotton origin and any non-iron treatment are not published.4 |
| Published construction | Single and double cuffs are offered, with classic, button-down, semi-cutaway and wing collars. Single-needle side seams, split yoke, stitch density, gussets and button material are not published on any page read.1 | Customisation covers collar style, cuff style, button thread colour, sleeve length, monogram, pocket styles and lining colours. Interlining type, single-needle stitching, stitch density, split yoke, button material and gussets are not published.4 |
| Where it is made | No country of manufacture was reached. T.M. Lewin has no country-of-origin page, and none of the pages read names a factory or a country. | Publishes production locations by product: suits, shirts and jackets are produced in Shanghai, shoes in Spain and jeans in Shandong, with orders returning to operation centres for a quality review before shipping.5 |
| Returns | Thirty days from order confirmation, unworn and with tags on. The customer pays: the prepaid label price and any taxes and duties are deducted from the refund. There is no exchange at all — the policy requires you to return the shirt and make a separate new purchase. Altered items cannot be returned.3 | If a garment does not fit, local partners make the adjustments, or any local tailor may do it with costs covered according to unpublished after-sales conditions, and if a garment cannot be altered to fit the brand will remake it until it fits. No window in days, no reimbursement cap, no return-shipping payer and no refund position is published on the guarantee page — a strong promise attached to terms the brand does not publish.6 |
| Turnaround | No dispatch or delivery time was reached on any T.M. Lewin page read for this record. | Hockerty’s two pages disagree: the how-it-works page says approximately 18 days end to end, while the shirt page shows a delivery promise of about 15 days. Both are the brand’s own figures and neither reconciles the other.54 |
| Spec per dollarCollar construction and sizing method against the price actually advertised (0–100). | 41/100 · Fair | 77/100 · Exceptional |
Who each one is for
- T.M. Lewin
- Someone who wants to know in inches what a brand means by "slim" before ordering, and is buying four shirts to trigger the discount.
- Hockerty
- A first-time made-to-measure buyer who wants the cheapest entry and will let an algorithm guess their measurements.
Questions people ask about this pair
- Is T.M. Lewin or Hockerty cheaper?
- Hockerty. Its lowest advertised price is $69 a shirt against $86 for T.M. Lewin. At full list the two are $115 and $69.
- Which has the better collar?
- Neither can be separated on published evidence. Does not publish whether the collar and cuffs are fused. Nothing on the shirt listing or the size guide addresses interlining. Does not publish whether the collar is fused. Hockerty is a configurator-led brand: it publishes style options in depth and construction specifications not at all.
- How do I get the right size from T.M. Lewin or Hockerty?
- T.M. Lewin: Formal shirts are sold by collar size and sleeve length across a 14.5 to 20 inch collar range, and T.M. Lewin is the rare brand that publishes the garment chest and waist behind each fit name. At a 15.5 inch collar the four formal fits run Regular 47 inch chest and 44 inch waist, Slim 45 and 40, Fitted 43.5 and 38.5, Super Fitted 41 and 37 — six inches of chest and seven inches of waist from end to end. The casual Relaxed fit switches to alpha sizing, so the brand runs two sizing systems across one shirt range. Hockerty: An algorithm predicts your body measurements from a few inputs, which the brand says is trained on over thirteen years of data. Customers may optionally verify the predictions or measure at home, but no tape measure is required and there is no route for copying a shirt you already own.
- What are the return policies?
- T.M. Lewin: Thirty days from order confirmation, unworn and with tags on. The customer pays: the prepaid label price and any taxes and duties are deducted from the refund. There is no exchange at all — the policy requires you to return the shirt and make a separate new purchase. Altered items cannot be returned. Hockerty: If a garment does not fit, local partners make the adjustments, or any local tailor may do it with costs covered according to unpublished after-sales conditions, and if a garment cannot be altered to fit the brand will remake it until it fits. No window in days, no reimbursement cap, no return-shipping payer and no refund position is published on the guarantee page — a strong promise attached to terms the brand does not publish.
What a made-to-measure shirt costs from the workshop
We are not on this page to sell you a third option you did not ask for, so here are the numbers to compare against the table above. A shirt cut to your own measurements in our Hoi An workshop is $39–$59 garment-only, depending on the cloth, with shipping quoted separately. There is no size to pick and no fit name to guess between: the pattern is drafted from your measurements.
Neither T.M. Lewin nor Hockerty is a bad shirt at its price. The question this page exists to answer is what each one publishes about how it is built — and that is in the table, with the sources. See how the measurements are taken.
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Other shirt comparisons
Sources
- 1. T.M. Lewin — men’s shirts collectionbrand · read 2026-09-29
- 2. T.M. Lewin — size guidesbrand · read 2026-09-29
- 3. T.M. Lewin — returns policybrand · read 2026-09-29
- 4. Hockerty — custom dress shirtsbrand · read 2026-09-29
- 5. Hockerty — how it worksbrand · read 2026-09-29
- 6. Hockerty — perfect fit guaranteebrand · read 2026-09-29