About Hugh & Crye

If you’re like us, you probably have a few ill-fitting shirts in your closet. A few tell-tale signs: sloppy sleeves that drape extra fabric, shoulder seams that sag off your shoulder, and blousy bodies that billow in the slightest breeze.

About the Name

Hugh & Crye is a play on the term hue and cry. In medieval England, civilians who were witness to a crime were bound by common law to exercise hue and cry, a clamor of protest, to apprehend the criminal and bring him to justice. The term can also be understood as ‘seeing something wrong in the world, and doing something about it’.

Our modified spelling is meant to evoke the feeling of old world England in two surnames of likely entitlement. Of course this is a mockery, as we come from humble beginnings, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and most importantly: our shirts are priced much more reasonably than their European counterparts, without sacrificing quality.

Our mandate, then, is a call to action against ill-fitting readymade shirts, over priced custom tailored shirts, and unsustainable clothing and manufacturing practices with adverse environmental and social impact.

origin

We recognized that many men we know (starting with ourselves) have a hard time finding dress shirts that fit well. We took a closer look and learned a few interesting things:

• Off the rack shirts from mass brands aren’t designed for the lean or athletically built guy. They’re designed to fit the masses, and thus fit very few of us well.
• Most men we know can be described by six body types.
• We developed a sizing system based on these body types, had some samples made, and tested our friends. They loved it.

company

Hugh & Crye is a men’s apparel company based in Washington, DC, with a specific focus on the online sales of men’s dress shirts. The shirts are designed to solve a common problem men have with the fit of most readymade shirts, by introducing a new sizing system designed for specific body types.

Hugh & Crye is Pranav Vora, Ernest Chrappah and Philip Soriano.

Pranav Vora
Founder + CEO
Pranav was born and raised in the Midwest and misses it every now and then. As Founder + CEO, he turned concept to launch and is the behind the character, direction and growth that is Hugh & Crye. Connecting with customers, designing future collections, partnering with like-minded organizations, crafting copy, recruiting good people, and spreading love through community service are all on his perpetual todo list. Before this, Pranav did consulting stuff. He has degrees from Indiana University and London School of Economics, and conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Ernest Chrappah
Co-Founder + Business Development
Ernest often animatedly defends his residency in suburbia (Maryland), and was born and raised in Ghana. Balancing a full-time job as a program analyst in the DC Government, he focuses on business development and vendor relationships, building on more than ten years of experience. Often the best dressed in the room, Ernest is all to eager to share why you're wasting time with "custom" tailors and mass brands; i.e., why you should be in a Hugh & Crye shirt! Ernest studied Economics at American University, and has an MBA from Maryland.

Philip Soriano
Customer Service + Experience
Philip grew up on both sides of the Atlantic; a proud dual-citizen of the US and Germany. Philip studied Finance at American University and is a staff accountant with a District school. At Hugh & Crye, Philip's good nature, ease, and geniune care to help customers make him a wunderbar operations guy. He picks-packs-ships orders, is happy to schedule time for customers to visit us, and is constantly making sure their experience with our product and brand is awesome.

launch product

We asked a number of our friends to tell us about the void in their wardrobe. By far, everyone expressed a need for a trusted stable of classic dress shirts. Crisp collars, timeless solids, stripes and checks, and a few that take cuff links.

We like to think of our launch product as “Back to Basics”. These shirts are the workhorses: trusted and worn often, suitable for any occasion. You can easily pair them with a suit and tie, or wear them under a sweater, or open with wool or cotton slacks, even smart denim.