Good / Affordable Work Attire

[CaramonLS]

Was wondering where people are shopping for Business Casual clothes at a decent price.

I've been going to Marks for the past couple years and I simply cannot bear to pay 65$ for a dress shirt, their prices have skyrocketed recently.

Walmart has 10$ shirts... which are barely worth the 10$ you pay. I'm looking for something in the middle.

Suggestions?

[peter12]

Land's End at Sears is supposed to be pretty good quality for the money. Around $45 a shirt, I think. Also wait for the Brooks Brothers sale on Boxing Day. You can get decent-made shirts in slim fit for around $35.

Most of my shirts are Brooks, and I don't think I paid full price for any of them. Just wait for sales. You should never have to pay $65 for a mediocre shirt.

Don't discount eBay or thrift stores either.

[pylon]

God I am going to get flamed. But Sears is awesome if you buy the boulevard club suits and shirts. It is their higher end stuff, if you could call a Sears suit high end...lol. At least once a month they go on for 50% off, and you can pick up really good quality dress shirts for about 25 bucks each. Suits usually 170-250, of you wait for the sales . I got some suits and shirts from there tailored and a lot of the guys at work have asked me what brand/where I get them and they think I am clowning around when I say Sears. I find you can get away with cheaper suits, if you have them fitted.

There are just too many cool things I want to buy out there that prevents me from dumping 800-1000 dollars on a suit. Ties, socks, belts, gaunch etc., you are a ###### if you pay dept store price for them. Winners is the only way to go for that stuff.

[Rathji]

All my dress shirts come from Moore's on half price sales, as it seems they have one every month or so. Normally about $30-35 each during the sales. I normally get the Pronto Oum non-iron.

There is probably something to be said about buying custom tailored shirts online though. I know there are some threads on CP about places where you send in your measurements and get the shirts for a very reasonable price. The next time I am in the market for more than 1 or 2 shirts, I will probably be investigating it further.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

I've been going to Marks for the past couple years and I simply cannot bear to pay 65$ for a dress shirt, their prices have skyrocketed recently.

For the Mark's shirts, go in and they will give you a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase the following month. Then buy during the 20% off sale. Last time I had to buy a pair of socks to get the pre-coupon pice over $50; so for $42 I got a shirt and a pair of socks.

I'm also going to check out Moore's this week; they are having a buy 1- get 1 free sale. I'm not sure how much the shirts are; but even at $70- two shirts for $70 is good.

I bought the "no-iron" shirts at the Bay; they just don't hold up to a full day's use like the Marks ones. Plus they tend to shrink more too.

[flylock shox]

Pylon's right about Sears. In Van they've had the 50% off sale running the last couple of weeks. I got a couple of Matinique suits (not a brand I'd previously heard of, but very nice) for less that $500 (taxes and alterations included). Even the Calvin Klein suits are coming in at under $400 apiece there (although they didn't look like particularly good quality suits to me - perhaps Calvin should stick to underwear).

I've also recently scored some great deals at, of all places, the PGA Golf official store. Don't know if there's one in Calgary, but they've got some nice light slacks and dress Ts.

Haha... stick to underwear...

Edit: Pylon's also right about Winners for accessories.

If I ever see a guy walking down the street dressed just like me, I'll know I've run into Pylon in real life.

[Jbo]

Costco sells great work shirts that do not require ironing for a great price.

No joke

[Caged Great]

The Bay downtown has a pretty good selection of jackets/shirts etc for not too much if you wait for a sale. A year or two I got a couple jackets for about $100-125 that were $300 (X % off, then an extra 10% with bay card etc...) and a ton of shirts for 25-35 on sale. You just have to be a bit patient, but stuff like that does come on sale on the regular.

[Nammer403]

For my work clothes I usually check put Zara and The banana republic factory store

[valo403]

I'm not sure about shipping to Canada so this may be moot, but gilt.com has a lot of great deals. If they don't ship to Canada I'm sure you can find other online options, just find brands that fit the way you like them (try them on in stores and by them online) and keep your eyes open, great deals are always out there. I buy a lot of stuff at the edge of seasons in department stores too, men's style typically doesn't change all that much from season to season but stores still need to make room for the new stuff.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Banana Republic, sign up for their online promos...there clothes are insanely expensive regular priced but wait it out and every couple of weeks you regularly get a 40% off everything code, then it's amazing quality, amazing selection for reasonable/normal prices.

[Hack&Lube]

I get all my day to day dress shirts @ H&M

[Mass_nerder]

H&M and Zara

[Deegee]

I get all mine at Sears and Moores. Used to go Mark's, but their sizing is odd and they are too pricy now.

Tough to find reasonable priced tall versions of shirts.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Another note on Sears.......Sears Days is on until October 2nd. 40-60% off pretty much everything.

They have some house brands (which are decent, imo) but also many, many, many designer labels as well.

And as mentioned already, Banana Republic (FACTORY) Stores are an awesome place to get stuff. I find the CrossIron Mills location is worth the trip, and the Deerfoot location is so-so.

[Ducay]

Usually go with Banana (regular store), you just need to wait for sales and those coupon days, which makes it quite affordable.

I generally avoid the Banana FACTORY stores since the quality is noticeably worse (try scraping your nail on any of their leather belts), and I can get the real stuff for the same price on sale at the real stores.

I used to buy the occasional piece at Zara, H&M, etc. but the quality isn't there and I might as well pay a bit more and get a decent lasting piece of clothing.

I'd sooner buy my work wardrobe at Lammles than buy clothes from Moores. (yuckie)

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by peter12

Most of my shirts are Brooks, and I don't think I paid full price for any of them. Just wait for sales. You should never have to pay $65 for a mediocre shirt.

Mine are as well now. I used to be a Banana Republic man, but the quality is night and day between to two. I just hope for a sale at the Brooks Brothers outlet at Cross Iron mills.

[Northendzone]

I think moored is running a buy one get one 50% off or something like that right now.

Last month I bought some stuff there and rec'd 50% off my purchases by turning in some unwanted work wear.

I find that the bay has very good sales as well.

[Mass_nerder]

The nice thing with zara and H&M is that the shirts are more fitted...
I find when I buy stuff from places like Sears, or Moores, the shirts billow.

[JiriHrdina]

I was like the OP and used to go to Marks - and don't anymore because I found their prices were going up too much, perhaps because they were acquired by Canadian Tire?

Another suggestion is Joe (Superstore's clothing) - I don't purchase my main work clothes there but you can get shirts for next to nothing - so I usually make sure I have a few as "stop gaps" when I don't get laundry done on time or what not....basically cheap fill-in shirts.