A rundown of the tall men’s clothing market

The latest High and Mighty catalogue came through my letterbox today and it says a lot about the way the market has evolved in this niche. High-res photography, professional design, and generally great to look at. They’ve come on a really long way since many years ago when they first opened their doors.

It’s not hard to see why. They’ve got some really high-quality gear on show (including some awesome Kayak polo shirts which I will write about soon, for now check out my run-down of their tall summer shirts). I wouldn’t be surprised if this was High and Mighty’s best spring/summer yet.

But this story seems to be playing out across the board. The WalkTall website has progressed massively since the early days. They’ve clearly got a team of dedicated web developers on the case. New products to their line arrive daily, and the choice is now unprecedented. Most visually, the e-mails that are sent out every week have become much more frequent and comprehensive. At least four ”newsletters” from various companies are sent out every week. Latest sales, free delivery weekends, and more.

A sea of weekly newsletters

So the competition is fierce in the tall men’s clothing market at the moment. Here are a few of the bugbears which we (and probably others) face which might could be addressed better.

1. Standardised sizings. One problem that new customers might face is distinguishing between a variety of sizes. The Kayak brand, for example, uses sizes such as 1,2,3 whereas others may use XLT XXLT and others might use king-size-tall, extra-tall etc etc. It would be really helpful to get better information on what these tall sizes actually mean.
2. Affordability. One interesting feature of the tall women’s clothing market is that it has been broken into by high-street chains. New Look and Topshop both offer tall ranges, at roughly the same price as other apparel. We’d guess that it won’t be long before high-street brands really start to attack the tall clothing market and introduce some new price competition.
3. There’s a fine line between e-mailing and spam. We’d say that tall clothing companies generally stay on the good side of the mark, but there are certainly some newer and more vibrant means of contacting with customers. Twitter might be a great way, for example, to receive live feedback and contact from customers.
4. There are still a substantial number of gaps in the market in terms of provision. This might be in terms of providing tall sports gear and tall workwear, which are currently underprovided. Tall size Wellington Boots are almost impossible to find in a size above UK15. Even trivial items such as hats and gloves aren’t currently made for tall men and could be customised to do just that.