Nicholas Wheeler, the English founder of men’s clothing brand Charles Tyrwhitt, was in a relatively cheerful mood during a recent Zoom call with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel. While the retail industry has been ravaged by the novel coronavirus, Charles Tyrwhitt has managed to weather the crisis. It can also keep counting on a reliable clientele: Charles Tyrwhitt is the shirt of choice among Orthodox Jews. “I am aware of that,” Wheeler said, clearly amused. “We do have a big choice of white shirts, and I suppose I would say this, but it’s a damn good shirt for a very good price.”

Brand of choice: Wheeler, who isn’t Jewish, is appreciative that his shirts are so deeply loved by the Orthodox community — a phenomenon he became aware of at least five years ago, he estimated. Wheeler said that Lakewood, N.J. — home to a sizable Orthodox Jewish population — has particularly robust sales. Periodically, he said, his company will receive a bulk order of 500 to 1,000 shirts in the U.S. 

White collar: “I think, in some of the very, very Orthodox communities, which are quite closed, we have people who literally act — they almost have a shop, I think, within the community, and so they’ll buy the shirts from us, and then I think they sell them on.” Incidentally, Wheeler has the same fashion sense as some of his most loyal clients. “It's quite hard to beat a white shirt,” he said. “A crisp white shirt just looks damn good on pretty much everybody.”

Trendsetters: Dovid Bashevkin, director of education at NCSY, the Orthodox Union’s youth group, agreed. “I’m wearing a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt as we speak,” he told JI in a phone interview. “There’s always something very humorous about the Orthodox buying patterns, which is there is a herd mentality about the types of products that Jews like,” Bashevkin said. He also pointed out that Charles Tyrwhitt shirts have “a kind of WASPy dignity that, I think, Orthodox Jews sometimes, however unconsciously, however subtly, appreciate. It has a quality to it that gives you that air of highbrow culture that, I think, very often attracts the trendsetters in the Jewish community.”

Home office casual: Even Wheeler himself is going a bit more casual these days, quarantining at home outside London, though he said the idea of daytime pajamas is “a slippery slope” he cannot condone. But he’s finding a happy medium in chinos and a striped lilac shirt. “At home,” he said, “if nobody else is around — it’s just the kids and my wife — they're going to think I'm a bit crazy if I'm wearing a suit and tie.”

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