Andrew Schoen tells me he's six foot seven about a minute into the conversation. It isn't a boast; it's an explanation. He's describing why custom clothing meant something to him from the first piece he tried.
“It was very difficult for me to find clothes," he says simply.
Before Joshua Gold Custom Clothier, Andrew did automotive body work. Hard on the back, hard on the knees, and he knew he didn't want to be old and still doing it. He didn't dress up much: date nights, special occasions, that’s about it.
Then, on a trip to Italy, his wife Melissa bought him cufflinks.
He went looking for a French cuff shirt to put them in and discovered there wasn't one he could wear. The sleeves stopped short every time.
But Melissa knew a guy named Josh. That’s where she got the shirt for Andrew’s next birthday. And the jacket for the birthday after that.
Eventually, Andrew came into the Royal Oak showroom. He and his son Noah were buying suits for Noah’s wedding when Josh mentioned to Noah, offhand, that he was hiring.
After talking with his wife, Andrew came back. "I was like, how about me, Josh?"
JOSH SAYS SOMETHING HERE?
Denim is new to the store, and it came slowly: custom jeans turn out to be hard to source. The shop went through several suppliers who couldn't do it right before landing on the one that could. The result is Joshua Gold's own custom denim, cut from Candiani.
Candiani is a storied Italian mill; the cloth is mostly cotton with a trace of give worked in, enough to move in without going slack the way cheaper denim does. The Joshua Gold custom denim bounces back. Wear it, wash it, wear it again — it holds.
Andrew’s worn the pair he's got on for the interview about fifteen times, washed a few times in between. I’m a witness: they look pristine. No blown-out knees. No sag.
I ask him how long a good pair should last, and I’m shocked at the answer. ”Twenty years,” Andrew says, and he means it.
As proof, he offers up the first suit Josh ever made him in 2016. He got a full decade of wear out of it, only donating it because his own shoulders had changed. “And a suit,” Andrew points out, “is thin compared to denim.”
There's a catch: a jean can't be let out. There's no hidden fabric in the seam. You can take a pair in, but not the reverse. And that’s its own kind of motivation. Want to keep wearing the same pair? You’ve got to stay in shape.
Fitting denim is less fussy than you'd guess. Schoen says it’s actually more forgiving than a dress trouser, because trousers are supposed to look tailored and exact, while jeans can be a little casual and broken-in and still be right.
In the shop they keep a set of try-ons. A client pulls on the standard fit, they lengthen the rise or bring in the leg, and only then does the real pair get ordered. Never four at once. One first — wear it, see how it sits, adjust — then the rest.
The jeans mistake he sees most on other men: too long. Too much fabric pooling at the shoe. Most guys never think to spend just twenty or thirty dollars having a pair shortened, so they walk around in denim that doesn't quite land. Considering cost per wear, Andrew notes, and spread across a hundred wearings, the alteration is pennies. But the fit is priceless.
Then there's the detail he saved for last. I ask him how he can tell a finely crafted pair of jeans from an ordinary one. He hikes his leg onto the desk to show me: along the cuff of the Joshua Gold custom denim pair he had on ran a clean finished line where the fabric folded. That’s the mark, Andrew explains, of selvedge denim: the tightly finished edge left by shuttle looms.
As he educates me, Andrew remarks that he can cuff his jeans now. “I never used to be able to.”
For a man who’s six foot seven, a pair of jeans long enough to fold over once at the bottom is not a small thing. This pair came in and he didn't touch it: no hem, no alteration, nothing. It simply fit, all the way down, with fabric to spare.
He's wearing them tonight, to a Tigers game, under an orange summer sports jacket. He shows me the outfit.
And I have to say: this guy who never used to dress up is likely going to be the sharpest-dressed guy in Comerica Park.
Joshua Gold Custom Clothier (joshua-gold.com) makes custom suits, shirts, and now denim built to last, for men of every size — including the very tall. Find the showroom at 206 West 6th Street in Royal Oak.
I'm shocked when I ask how long a good pair should last. ”Twenty years,” Andrew says, and he means it.