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 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.
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 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.
Philip Soriano
Customer Service + Operations
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 worked at a non-profit before joining Hugh & Crye. Philip's genuine care to help customers and behind-the-scenes hustle make him a wunderbar service and operations guy.
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.
