Thursday March 7, 2007 1:35 pm Eastern Time
By Jan Paschal

NEW YORK, March 7 (Reuters) - OK, guys, you know who you are. You stand 5 feet 8 inches tall -- or (gasp!) less -- in your socks or bare feet.

When it's time to shop for clothes, it's clear that the U.S. apparel industry gives guys of your stature the short end of the fashion stick. "I carry shirts in a 14 (inch) neck and a 30 (inch) sleeve," said Gary Anders, the owner of Napoleon's Tailor, "the clothier for the man 5 feet 8 inches or under," which has two stores -- one in Milwaukee and one in Chicago. "You're not going to find below a 33, maybe a 32-1/2 sleeve, or below a 14-1/2 neck, in most stores."

The lack of selection -- in retailers and clothing choices -- is not due to a shortage of potential customers, in Anders' opinion. He estimates 30 percent of the U.S. male population -- perhaps as many as 37 million American men -- could shop at Napoleon's Tailor or its counterparts -- if they chose.

"Most short men are used to wearing baggy or loose clothes," he said. "They're in denial." That denial has a trickle-down effect, discouraging men who need clothes in this size category from buying them. That, in turn, makes it a challenging business for apparel makers and retailers who specialize in the shorter-man sizes. "If you're talking about stores that cater exclusively to shorter men, you'd have trouble getting to 10," Anders said. "I can't be a customer of Levi Strauss," the jeans maker. "They want a high-volume clientele. I have to go to a manufacturer with excess capacity that will do a special cutting."

Muldoon's Men's Wear, Inc., in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, about an hour east of Minneapolis, carries clothing for "big and small, short and tall" as well as regular sizes -- a strategy the 52-year-old family-owned business began years ago to compete with department stores, owner John Muldoon said. Online, Muldoon's -- famous for the flashing shamrocks on its home page -- shows customers what's in stock in certain items and sizes, Muldoon noted. "We carry Bill Blass jeans, a nicely made jean," in short-rise and short-inseam sizes, said Muldoon, who estimates 10 percent of his brick-and-mortar store's business is in the short-man category, while 60 percent is big and tall men's clothing, and 30 percent is in regular sizes.

"If someone's looking for short-man sweaters, I send him to Napoleon's Tailor," Muldoon said.

SHORT INSEAM ALONE WON'T CUT IT

One of the worst shopping problems shorter men face: Finding a pair of slacks or jeans with a shorter rise. Anders, of course, stocks dress pants and jeans in a range of waist and inseam sizes proportioned for short and extra short men. "Men will fix on a number, a waist and inseam size," he said. But, he noted, a 32 waist, 28 inseam -- if it's not cut for a shorter man -- is not that different from a 32 waist, 32 inseam. It's just 4 inches shorter. "When a shorter man puts on a taller man's pants, the crotch is too low, the butt's in the thigh, the thigh's in the knee and the knee's in the calf," said Anders, who stands 5 feet 5 inches tall in his socks. "They need a shorter rise," which describes the waist-to-crotch segments of the front and back sections of a pair of pants. Whatever you do, don't call Anders or his customers short. "It's those other guys who are overly tall," Anders jokingly told Reuters.

Barry Goodstein, of Milwaukee, an associate publisher of Travelhost Inc., a Dallas-based privately held corporation known for its magazine placed in hotel rooms, said wearing clothes in the right size is an experience every man of shorter stature should try. "When you put on clothes that fit you properly, it is amazing," said Goodstein, a Napoleon's Tailor customer. "All of a sudden, you aren't wearing bulky sweaters. When you put on a pair of jeans, the rise is proper. It takes some adjustment. You feel better -- even a short Jewish guy like me. I'm 5 feet 5 inches and a fraction." And, of course, once Anders converts a shorter man to clothes that fit right, he's careful not to walk into Napoleon's Tailor wearing something baggy or scruffy. "Oh, Gary will embarrass you. He'll say, 'What's that you have on, that old schmatte?' which is, of course, Yiddish for rag or junk," Goodstein said.

A SHORT STORY

Napoleon's Tailor, which Anders and his wife Brigid started in 1994, is one of only a handful of stores nationwide that specialize in clothes for men of shorter stature. (To check out his inventory, see: http://www.napoleonstailor.com. For information, call: 800-233-9522.) "My wife wants to get credit for naming the store," Anders said. "We came up with the idea after years of having trouble finding clothes to fit me. We didn't want to call it Gary Anders' Short Man Shop. We didn't want to use the 'S' word" and "make it the butt of jokes" among taller people.

Napoleon, by the way, "stood 5 feet 2 inches tall, according to the short version of the Encyclopedia," Anders said. "He was short by military officer and aristocracy standards." And although some biographies of Napoleon peg him as slightly taller than that, if the brilliant French general and emperor were to walk into his store, Anders would have a 14/30 shirt and a sportscoat, probably a 36 extra short, in several styles ready to show him.

Short Persons Support, a Web site that offers advice to people of shorter stature, lists 14 clothing and shoe stores nationwide (see: http://www.shortsuppport.org). It notes catalog and Internet retailer Lands' End, Inc. (NYSE:LE - news) and Brooks Brothers, the home of the tailored boardroom look, carry some clothing in shorter sizes. The short-man specialty stores include the Jockey Club Ltd., of Santa Ana, California.

An important aside: The ShortPersonsSupport group's Web site also lists a "Who's Who of Short People." But curiously, it doesn't list Andy Rooney, the CBS "60 Minutes" news correspondent. (As a woman and a journalist who stands 5 feet 1 inch, I've had a secret crush on Rooney ever since we shared an elevator ride in 1985 at a journalists' convention in Phoenix. After all, he's one of the few giants of the news business I can see eye to eye with. So Andy, if you're reading this now, this one's for you, baby!)

Confidential to readers who notice this column is not quite as long as the others: I was told to ... keep it short.

(The Shopping column runs weekly. If you have questions, information or comments related to shopping or this column, please send them to Jan.Paschal(at)Reuters.com)

(CBS) Big and tall stores seem to be everywhere, but when it comes to styles for the diminutive man, short men get short shrift. Recently, Lisa met one man who wants to conquer that fashion demographic. His store, the smallest chain store in America, "Napoleon's Tailor."

Napoleon's Tailor offers stylish threads for small men looking to make a big impression.
"I love it," says customer Al Raya. "Trousers fit well, shoes shined, so forth, your first impression is always your best impression."

Raya is one satisfied customer, but it's been a challenge convincing others. It seems short men are in denial.

"Petite may be fine for the women. It doesn't work for men. They will refuse to buy clothes that have anything to do with short, even if it fits," says store owner Gary Anders.

"If you've ever seen Danny de Vito, he's really only five feet tall," says Anders, who helps his customers relax by reminding them of powerful and sexy men who happen to be short.

In a nation where the message seems to be bigger is better, small anything seems to be out of style. At Starbucks, a short coffee is called a tall, and some fast food chains have eliminated small sodas from their menu.

"I can't supersize myself to get into a department store. Thirty-nine cents isn't going to do it," says Anders.

A line on the door warns customers: if you are taller than this line, the clothing will not fit you…a little attempt at humor that Anders' customers appreciate.

Napoleon's Tailor ends the humiliation of shopping in the children's department or the expense of custom tailoring.

"I've had customers walk out of here and go, 'I bought something off the rack.' That child-like quality in the voice of wonderment, because that hadn't happened to them in years, if ever," says Anders.

You may be surprised to learn that short men are not in short supply. Anders says nearly twice as many men actually fall into the short category as those who wear big and tall clothing. Yet, because there seems to be a stigma attached to acknowledging that you're small, most men would rather not shop a store that caters to the little guy.

By JONATHAN EIG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

CHICAGO -- Gary Anders owns the nation's largest chain of clothing stores for short men. The chain consists of two stores.

What did you expect?

Mr. Anders operates one Napoleon's Tailor shop in Chicago and another in Milwaukee. But like Napoleon himself, he dreams of controlling an empire. If he could find a big investor, he would build a chain of 50 stores. Then he would have the buying power to persuade such well-known labels as Polo and Tommy Hilfiger to make clothing tailored to better fit his customers.

Is that unreasonable? Thousands of big-and-tall shops occupy the retail landscape, and Casual Male, the largest such chain, has 450 stores.

The only problem is that Americans are getting bigger all the time, and the diminutive man doesn't care to think of himself as such. He would rather buy clothing that doesn't fit well.
It's enough to make Mr. Anders, who stands 5 feet 5 in tasseled loafers and wears a 39-short jacket, more than a little agitated.

"People don't think they need me," he said one day, surveying the floor of his Chicago store, waiting for the morning's first customer. "They don't want to admit they're short. They'd rather wear baggy clothing."

And at least according to Mr. Anders's eye, most short men in the U.S. look lousy. Their shirts billow where they ought to cling. Their sleeves flare at the wrist, resembling something suitable for a pirate. Their pants flutter like flags when they walk. Yet the wearers of this offending apparel think they look swell, because they've never tried anything else.

Lately, things seem to be getting worse. The trend toward casual attire has taken a big chunk out of the men's-clothing business. As a result, department stores are shrinking their inventories and eliminating their tailor shops. That means fewer choices for short guys and fewer experts on hand to help them make adjustments.

Another trend -- the ubiquitous baggy look -- has sent the signal to short men that it's somehow stylish to wear pants in which the crotch hangs down near the knees and the knees droop down around the ankles. In truth, Mr. Anders says, oversize clothing tends to make small men look smaller.

The average American male is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 180 pounds, according to the government's latest data. With that in mind, Mr. Anders figures that at least one in three men should be shopping in a store that caters exclusively to men shorter than that. Yet there are fewer than a dozen such stores nationwide, he says.

"Give me 10% of that market," says Mr. Anders, "and, man, I'd be living on a beach somewhere."
Napoleon's Tailor has little trouble attracting the very small man -- the one who has been reduced to buying his clothes in the children's section of a department store. But that is not a market with which a clothier can greatly expand his domain. Mr. Anders also needs to attract the man who is only slightly below average height.

In Chicago, he advertises heavily on two radio stations. In Milwaukee, he purchases a few TV spots as well. In his ads, he goes out of his way to avoid using the words "small" and "short." Instead, he reaches out to customers who are "sized more like Michael J. Fox rather than Clint Eastwood."
But such circumlocutions haven't worked as well as he would like.

"I need a saturation campaign, multifaceted," he says, "with one message after another, to teach people what's going on."

Mr. Anders does have one secret weapon. While his store caters exclusively to short men, it welcomes with open arms customers who happen to be quite wide. In fact, a big part of his business is done with men who are shaped more like bowling balls than pins. Napoleon's Tailor carries a nice selection of jackets in size 52 portly short.

While the American male grows slightly taller with each generation, Mr. Anders knows well that men are also growing wider -- and probably at a more rapid rate.

Before launching his retail campaign, Mr. Anders had a job as a pharmaceutical salesman. He often had trouble finding business attire that fit him properly. And one day his wife bought him a pair of medium swim trunks (he has a 33-inch waist) with a matching polo shirt. "I was just swimming in it," he says. But when he tried to exchange it, he was told the store didn't carry smalls because they didn't sell enough of them.

That's when it began to dawn on him: The big stores were taking little men for granted.

Even his neighborhood McDonald's, he noticed, had increased the size of a small drink and raised its price. And at Starbucks, drink sizes now start at "tall." ("People are talling," confirms Audrey Lincoff, a spokesman for the coffee chain. "Tall is sort of standard.")

All these slights miffed Mr. Anders. But he spotted an opportunity. He quit the pharmaceutical business, mortgaged his family's house in Hartland, Wis., near Milwaukee, and in October 1994, opened his first Napoleon's Tailor. A few years later, he expanded to Chicago.

His stock is made by a variety of manufacturers. Mostly they are the same companies that supply to the big-and-tall stores. While some of the clothes he sells might be available elsewhere, most are made to order for him.

At the Chicago shop, he has painted a bright-yellow line across the door, at a height of 5 feet, 8 inches, with the following message: "If you are taller than this line, the clothing will not fit you. Our store is exclusively for men 5'8" and under."

Into his store one morning, gliding safely under the yellow line, stepped Charles Richeson. Craig Gaide, co-owner of the Chicago store, helped Mr. Richeson into a gray suit that complements the tangerine dress shirt he was wearing. The jacket: size 41 short.

"I shrunk," said Mr. Richeson, who is 74 years old.

"I believe you have," said his companion, Fran Bye.

At other stores, Mr. Richeson buys regular-size pants and has them adjusted. But when the alterations are through, Ms. Bye complains, "he looks like he's got one big pocket across the back." So she recommended a visit to Napoleon's.

Ms. Bye struck upon one of Mr. Anders' biggest complaints. No matter how severely pants are altered, they won't fit a short man properly if they're not specially designed. The zippers are too long. The pockets are too big. The rear end is too baggy. When the legs are shortened, the proportions are often thrown out of whack.

"It's like everything else," says customer Bill Thomson. "It's homogenization. Either you're a medium or a large."

As he picked through a rack of wool coats, Mr. Thomson's eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. "Forty-two extra-short!" he exclaimed, having finally found his size. "I wouldn't even know what one of these looks like."

Thanks to such enlightened customers, Mr. Anderson made a healthy profit on both his stores last year. And how did the nation's largest chain of big-and-tall stores fare? Casual Male Corp., of Canton, Mass., filed for bankruptcy protection. Perhaps that goes to prove what Mr. Anders has been saying all along: Size isn't everything.