The journey to the long sleeve papa drew has been an evolutionary process.
Last year I had a range of long sleeve shirts made up, but in the end, I wasn’t totally in love with the design or fit so didn’t make any more.
But I’m about to give it another shot. This time though, they’re based on the original papa drew design, complete with the distinctive one-piece sleeve and three-piece back.
A funny story has led to the second wave of long sleeves. They came about purely due to a miscommunication with a client, a client who had trusted me to make shirts for his wedding party. After he picked up the shirts, he gave me a call, surprised they had short sleeves. I assumed he’d ordered short sleeve shirts (you know what they say about assuming) but turns out, he wanted them in long sleeves.
With less than a week before the wedding, I couldn't sleep, wondering how I might be able to rectify the sleeve issue. At 2am I figured I could get my machinist to take out the short sleeves and replace them with long sleeves.
So, I went down to the workshop and started redesigning my short sleeve pattern to a long sleeve. By 4:30am I’d finished modifying my pattern.
To my relief, the wedding party decided to stick with the short sleeve shirts, but the early morning in the workshop wasn’t in vain because now I have a brand-new long sleeve papa drew pattern. There are 6 long sleeve shirts on their way.
