Custom Shirt Making: Career Insights from a NYC Entrepreneur

Custom Shirt Maker 

Ever wonder how a guy chasing love in NYC ends up dressing Broadway stars and Hollywood legends? Meet Carl Goldberg—a shirtmaker, entrepreneur, and all-around fabric whisperer. 

He didn’t plan on a career in fashion, but 40+ years later he still runs his a thriving custom shirt business in the heart of Manhattan

In this episode, Carl shares his career journey—from retail gigs to launching his own shop—and offers insights for anyone thinking about a career change, or dreaming of turning a love of fashion into a full-time job.

You’ll get a peek behind the curtain of the entertainment world, where Carl’s shirts have been featured in The Producers, The Music Man, Law & Order, and many more.

Tune in and hear how Carl keeps the love in every stitch.
Follow him on Instagram @cegonyc and see the magic for yourself.

Carl’s website - https://www.cego.com

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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation

Chapters

• 0:00 The Tom Hanks Effect
• 7:12 From Family Business to Custom Shirts
• 12:52 Building a Business Stitch by Stitch
• 18:04 Fitting Celebrities and Custom Requests
• 23:44 Breaking Into Broadway and Film

Transcript

The Tom Hanks Effect

Speaker 1 0:03

I remember we were doing a fitting for Tom Hanks for the Post. I'm in there. He puts the shirt on, he puts the suit on, he has the tie pushed up. He sits down. Someone hands him a newspaper. He's got a cigarette. He undoes the tile a bit and goes straight into character.

Speaker 2 0:19

Wow.

Speaker 1 0:19

In the fitting room. He does the voice, you know. He does the mannerisms.

Speaker 2 0:23

Wow.

Speaker 1 0:23

It was so much fun to watch.

Speaker 2 0:27

Welcome back to how Much Can I Make. I'm your host, mara Vozeri. Today I'm here with Carl. When his wife, cynthia, told me that I should talk to him because he's a custom shirt maker and his work is really interesting, I got really curious. I thought I should go and see his shop. I imagined the man sitting behind the sewing machine and working along, but I was totally mistaken. When I got to his shop on the second floor in a Manhattan building, there were like 10 people working seamstress pattern makers. There were shirts everywhere, material of high end, lots of shirts from Broadway plays and movies and pictures of celebrities. So let's find out how did he get into it and why, and is it worth it? So, carl, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1 1:15

My pleasure Marath.

Speaker 2 1:16

Excellent. Let's start by telling me how did you get into shirt design?

Speaker 1 1:21

Well, I'll give you the quick story. My family owned an Army and Navy surplus store in Philadelphia. I worked there as a kid a lot of times, through college as well. But then in college I met a girl and I followed her to New York. I didn't go into the family business and much to my father's.

Speaker 2 1:40

It's always because of love.

Speaker 1 1:42

Yeah, you know I was one groom to take over, even though my older sister ended up being the one who did and sadly the business closed a few years ago, shy of 100 years in business. My father was an amazing merchant and he turned it into a fashionable store. Starting in like the late 60s with the hippiess, 80s all the way into the 90s with the young punk rock kids would go shopping in there because it was inexpensive did you spend time in the store?

Speaker 2 2:12

did you breathe in all that fashion and all of?

Speaker 1 2:14

that I worked there every saturday okay and my father used to take me to new york on business trips. We'd sometimes we'd go around the country to look at factories. I remember going to the mid Midwest to see a Lee Jean factory and then we went down to Carolinas to see a sweatshirt factory that they used to buy tons of sweatshirts from.

Speaker 2 2:33

So was the desire to be one of those was building in you then, like I said, I moved to New York.

Speaker 1 2:39

My mother goes. If you move to New York you have to have a job. So I got a job at the old Barney's at 7th Avenue, 17th Street as a salesman. As a salesman downstairs selling shirts and ties and shirts yeah, lots of accessories and whatnot. And I worked there only about three months from there because I didn't want to work retail. So I took a job in Williamsburg in a clothing factory that made really nice natural shoulder suits, very classic suits. So I worked there for a year and when I was there, one of our suppliers I ran what they called the special order department. So stores around the country would send in orders and I oversaw like six cutters who would cut the suits and then they'd go through and make sure they got shipped. So while I was there, one of our suppliers of fabric woolens wanted to know if I wanted a job. So I ended up taking this job, working in midtown selling woolens to the tailors selling woolens.

Speaker 2 3:34

Woolens, what is woolens? Suit fabric? Okay, you know. So you sell them, the raw material selling raw material.

Speaker 1 3:40

But when I was there, I met people who were what we call custom clothiers, and these were people who were not tailors I am not a tailor. They would measure, people, help, style and then they would have the stuff made in various factories.

Speaker 2 3:53

So when did you have the eureka moment that you said, aha, I could do that 1982.

Speaker 1 3:59

Wow, here's nice Jewish boys working for a Gentile firm. And it's like, who are these people? I didn't understand them at all. They were just so. It was so strange. It was a different world, but they had a good business. Anyway, I left there, started this business. I floundered for a long time but I had some good customers and over time I knew all the tailors from when I sold them fabric. So if I had a problem with a suit I'd sometimes ask some of the tailors from when I sold them fabric. So if I had a problem with a suit, I'd sometimes ask some of the tailors why doesn't this fit? And we'd talk and they'd explain you know what went wrong. And these were tailors who had made very expensive clothing. I was not competition. And they would say you know what? Mr Smith needs some shirts. Why don't you make him some shirts? So they helped me out. So I'd start making. I started doing more and more shirts.

Speaker 2 4:45

So you were actually taking the measurements and sewing.

Speaker 1 4:48

No, no, no, I don't sew a stitch, so I would take the measurements style it get the fabric and I had different people making them for me. At that point there was a little shop on 32nd Street did some work for me and they only have about four people. And then there was another bigger factory in New jersey that I worked with had a much bigger shop. They had about 80 or 90 people out there. It was a big shop and they did work for people all over the country, so I was just one of their customers so custom shirts is a it's a tradition, it's going on for for a long time forever.

Speaker 2 5:21

Yeah, okay, so what was the moment that you decided you're going to open your own place? Your place is very impressive.

Speaker 1 5:27

You have a lot of people working there. The business changed over the years.

Speaker 2 5:31

Okay so.

Speaker 1 5:32

I started with a tiny little place and then, took another little tiny place.

Speaker 2 5:37

And how did you recruit your people? Your pattern maker, your tailor, you know what?

Speaker 1 5:45

People sort of found me in some ways. So when I was at 174 5th above Eisenberg's coffee shop, I met this woman who had worked for somebody else, for another shirt maker, and she had a fight with him. So she came to me and she was excellent, she was really good shirt maker, so she was working for me so you all grew up very organically, yeah then I got another sewer.

Speaker 1 6:06

Then I found a cutter pattern maker and then added another person here. More machines moved to a bigger space, added more people, got a better cutter, got rid of the other one.

Speaker 2 6:17

Who comes to you for custom shirt. Let's start with that.

Speaker 1 6:21

For years it was just regular men who wanted something nice, something special. Sometimes they were really difficult to fit. A man might have a 19 and a half inch neck, but the rest of his body is a large. So if you bought a 19 and a half, he's swimming in the shirt and you can't alter it.

Speaker 1 6:38

Then you get the type who wants specific details and, for example, some guys want a pocket on their shirt with French cuffs and you can't find a shirt for cufflinks with a pocket. And then there's other people who just like the idea of picking their own fabrics, picking the styles and having it made for them.

Speaker 2 6:55

I saw shirts that you did for the producers on Broadway, for Tom Hanks, for Leonardo DiCaprio. Before we get to the entertainment business, what is the craziest request you have for shirt?

From Family Business to Custom Shirts

Speaker 1 7:08

There's a lot, I mean in the last couple of years. It was kind of interesting was a young black kid bought a Louis Vuitton scarf that had like tags on it. Looked like luggage tags, and he asked us to make it into a short sleeve shirt, which we did, and it was absolutely beautiful. If you look on my Instagram, it's there and the way my pattern maker did this, matching everything it says Louis Vuitton on the back of the shirt, on the little sleeve. I mean, it's phenomenal how he did this.

Speaker 2 7:37

And it's allowed to do it right, To take somebody's why not, he bought the fabric, I mean he bought the scarf.

Speaker 1 7:44

He.

Speaker 2 7:49

So okay, so I get what is different from the custom shirt, from the shirt on the rack, because you could really fit it and I can see it's a very expensive thing to do, though Only people with money could do that.

Speaker 1 8:02

Well, you know, years ago I used to have this bus driver. He lived way out in the middle of nowhere in Queens and he did a Frank Sinatra routine in one of the local bars and he wanted to have shirts that looked like something. Frank Sinatra routine in one of the local bars and he wanted to have shirts that looked like something Frank Sinatra wore. You know, back in the 50s and 60s He'd come in and he'd give me, we'd pick out the fabric, he'd give me like $20 or $30 up front and then he'd send me every week there'd be a check, another check for $10, a check for $12.

Speaker 2 8:31

What was the total? Do you remember?

Speaker 1 8:34

You know, it was probably like $200. This is years ago. He passed away and he would keep sending me these checks every week. Once he paid, once it was all paid, he came and picked up his shirt and he was a bus driver. I mean this. I mean he had maybe two shirts made a year.

Speaker 2 8:48

Right, and that was his custom, yeah, but okay. So from a custom, let's get to all these celebrities, tons of celebrities that I saw pictures of and shirts of. How did you break?

Speaker 1 8:58

here's how it started, okay uh, one day I get a phone call from this woman. She's one of the costume designers of the show spin city. This is back in the late 90s and she asked me the prices. I get a call the next day. Can you come, please measure? The producer of spin city. I said sure, they were filming over on 23rd Street at the Piers, all the way west. So I said who am I measuring? Oh, michael J Fox Made some shirts for Michael J Fox.

Speaker 1 9:23

They were happy. And then there was a fellow working there at the time in the costume department who went to work for William IV Long who was a famous costume designer who has won numerous Tonys. They were working with somebody else. They didn't really like him. Fellow Tom said why don't you give Carl a try? So the first shirts we made were for the Music man with Craig Bierko. So we made shirts for that and I even made shirts for the recent Music man with Hugh Jackman. But the funny thing about Hugh Jackman was the first shirt we made was the typical big stripes of the white round collar and he tries it on. It looks great. Afterwards he goes. I don't want to look like the typical music man. So we basically copied a Prada shirt that he loved, which was okay. Fine, whatever you want, we'll do it. You know you're the one, the one bringing the. You know Hugh Jackman's bringing the people to the theater whatever he wants, right, wow so and then the next show William Ivey Long did was the producers.

Speaker 1 10:24

So nice Jewish boy was making Nazi stormtrooper shirts for a year for a year you worked on that show yeah, we did, for it ran for a long time. I made shirts for Nathan Lane, for Matthew Broderick, so we did. It ran for a long time. I made shirts for Nathan Lane for.

Speaker 2 10:36

Matthew Broderick. So what do you mean? It ran for a long time Throughout the show you had to renew and make.

Speaker 1 10:40

Yeah, you always had to make new ones, so the actors. So, for example, let's say it was Nathan Lane.

Speaker 2 10:45

Right.

Speaker 1 10:46

He had four different shirts that he wore and you make at least two of each shirt so that he wears one one day, and then they wash it, and that evening he puts on the other shirt.

Speaker 2 10:57

Right.

Speaker 1 10:57

Sometimes certain actors perspire quite a bit and you make more.

Speaker 2 11:02

Wow, and what do they pay? The Broadway must pay big money for a shirt.

Speaker 1 11:06

I usually charge them the same price usually. The only time I charge them more is if they need it in like a day or two.

Speaker 2 11:13

Oh right, which. The only time I charge them more is if they need it in like a day or two, oh right, which happens.

Speaker 1 11:17

I mean, we'll make a shirt in two hours when we have to.

Speaker 2 11:19

But the material you use is very expensive, right?

Speaker 1 11:22

For the Broadway things. It doesn't have to be expensive, it has to just look the way they want it to look.

Speaker 2 11:31

It has to look a specific way.

Speaker 1 11:32

Oh yeah, Makes sense yeah.

Speaker 2 11:33

For costumes yeah, specific way. Oh, yeah, makes sense. Yeah, for costumes yeah, so okay.

Speaker 1 11:36

And how did you break into TV and film? I mostly did Broadway and then you know they will talk. All the costume people talk to each other oh, I need something made. Who do you have? And my name would get passed around. And then I started doing TV and some film. I made shirts for this costume designer, Anne Roth, who's amazing. She's won both Tonys and Oscars. I remember we were doing a fitting for Tom Hanks for the Post, and I'm in there. He puts the shirt on, he puts the suit on, he has the tie pushed up, he sits down, someone hands him a newspaper, he's got a cigarette, he undoes the tile a bit and goes straight into character in the fitting room. He does the voice, you know it does the mannerisms.

Speaker 2 12:18

it was so much fun to watch wow, who else give me some more gossip?

Speaker 1 12:23

uh, you know what most actors are wonderful to deal with really yeah, they enjoy them, they're nice. I mean, sometimes you get actors that are funny who do shtick during the fitting Martin Short, really, yes, nathan Lane. I'm trying to think of some others. Billy Crystal is not funny in real life.

Speaker 2 12:45

Really Interesting.

Building a Business Stitch by Stitch

Speaker 1 12:47

Don't tell anybody. There's certain actors who I will not name, who I never have to measure in person again, nor do I want to, but I have their measurements and we just make them things. I don't always measure the actors in person. Sometimes they'll give me a shirt that they wear and they will copy it and make adjustments to it.

Speaker 2 13:09

Now are you usually the one that does the measurements.

Speaker 1 13:11

Yes.

Speaker 2 13:12

Okay, so you do the marketing, obviously, and the sales, and you do the measurements and then you come, you give it to the people and they take it from there. Yeah, that sounds like a great job. Yeah, I enjoy it.

Speaker 1 13:24

There was a long period of time where I had struggled. When I met Cynthia, this was about 12 years ago. Things really start to turn around for me and my business mostly the entertainment business just grew.

Speaker 2 13:37

It's love again. Brought it to you no it's back and now.

Speaker 1 13:40

today it's like 50% of my business.

Speaker 2 13:42

Wow.

Speaker 1 13:42

Entertainment TV film. I do a lot of work on Broadway still.

Speaker 2 13:46

What do you prefer To the entertainment industry or individuals? Regular customers yeah.

Speaker 1 13:52

With certain customers. I build a rapport and it becomes personal. I become friendly with some of my customers and socialize with them. You know there's plenty of faceless customers. They come in. I can't remember their name, who are they, what do they do? But I remember a lot of my really good customers and enjoy seeing them, do you?

Speaker 2 14:11

make shirts for weddings?

Speaker 1 14:12

Oh, of course, wedding, yeah. So as the business has grown, these days we want a five-shirt minimum. So if somebody comes in because we make a full pattern Right and that's time-consuming, we make a first sample. And today somebody wants one shirt, two shirts, I just say no, we don't have the production capable. We do everything inside, and for years I worked with another factory in New Jersey that did quite a bit of my work and sadly he closed during the pandemic.

Speaker 2 14:39

So it's all in-house now.

Speaker 1 14:40

Everything's in-house. Yeah, for weddings. I'm not doing one for this one, one for that one.

Speaker 2 14:49

It's five for the same customer.

Speaker 1 14:50

Oh okay, oh yeah, because every time you make one, if it's a new customer, you have to make a pattern. We're not computerized. I used to get a computer in there to make the patterns be easier, but we don't have that yet and that's going to happen one of these days.

Speaker 2 15:04

Oh, you think, so I have to. You could have robots. You could do one robot that will do the pattern, sew it for you and out it goes.

Speaker 1 15:12

Like I said, when you get the robots involved, there's no love, Right? The pattern is a lot easier to do because you still need somebody to cut it. We cut by hand. I'm not ready to spend a quarter of a million dollars to get an automatic knife cutter.

Speaker 2 15:27

Oh, that's what they have those too.

Speaker 1 15:29

They have these amazing cutting machines, and then the big factories have machines that make everything automatically, and today all the shirts are made in these massive factories with computerized machinery. There's nothing worse than non-iron fabric. It's an abomination, oh. It's treated with terrible toxic chemicals formaldehyde, liquid ammonia, also a lot of resins. That's what they put in the non-iron shirts.

Speaker 2 15:57

Wow.

Speaker 1 15:57

And as I always put it with my ladies, in those big factories there's no love in the garment when we make the shirt. You know, it's a small workroom. We have up to 10 people and they care.

Speaker 2 16:08

So, if you look back now, what is the one thing that you wish you had known before you started your business?

Speaker 1 16:16

You know, when I first started, I don't think I was as hungry as I became later in terms of the business, when my son was born, that's 35 years ago, there was this revelation. I said oh my God, I've really got to start working.

Speaker 2 16:31

No more fooling around. That will do it for sure. Now let me ask you what kind of training somebody needs to get in order to become a shirt maker.

Speaker 1 16:39

It depends. If you're going to sew and cut, then you really need a proper education. There's a lot of stuff people learn on YouTube today. It's amazing how many tutorials you can see and sort of learn on your own. But you need someone to really show you how to do those things. But if you just want to be a designer, there's lots of ways to do it. There's lots of companies that will help you design your line, do the manufacturing, find the fabric and then you just have to sell it and market it. And today there are factories that do work not so much in the United States anymore, but you know, in Europe, obviously China, portugal where they really set up well and you send the. I mean in China there's one factory I know. You send in the measurements, they pull the fabric and two weeks later the garment's been sent, you know, at your doorstep.

Speaker 2 17:24

Yeah, I did it once with a leather jacket, actually with India.

Speaker 1 17:28

Okay, did it have it come out?

Speaker 2 17:30

Very good, oh good. What would you say? People don't realize about your industry.

Speaker 1 17:35

Like any business, it's a lot of work. It's not easy. There's always something that could go wrong. For example, right now the tariffs are so stupid you don't necessarily know how much things are going to cost. I ordered Mother of Pearl buttons from Italy and they came in much higher the tariffs than I thought they would. Wow, that doesn't higher the tariffs than I thought they would.

Speaker 2 17:55

Wow.

Speaker 1 17:56

That doesn't even include the shipping, because shipping charges are high these days.

Speaker 2 17:59

Right and you didn't calculate it into the estimate that you gave the customer.

Speaker 1 18:04

Well, no, I mean I'm buying thousands of buttons at a time. So it's not a lot, it's just to me all of a sudden it's an extra $400, which is really inconsequential for a single button when I'm buying thousands of buttons at once. But it still, it adds up.

Speaker 2 18:20

What is your biggest challenge?

Speaker 1 18:22

Getting workers who I can put on the payroll. The garment industry is notorious. It started. People came over from wherever they were living. They got hired. They didn't get paid a lot, but there was jobs. They needed hired. They didn't get paid a lot, but there was jobs. They needed people. And today it's very difficult to find people who have legal status.

Speaker 2 18:41

Wow, well, most of the Simsters. I would think it's a problem, I know in other countries they're usually immigrants.

Speaker 1 18:47

Yeah, I mean everybody in my factory, in my workroom it's not a factory speaks either Spanish or Portuguese.

Speaker 2 18:53

Right Wow, factory speaks either Spanish or Portuguese, right, wow, that's a problem, so okay. So what is the biggest?

Speaker 1 18:58

reward. I really like the interaction with the customers, with the costume designers helping them to get what they want, and then when you see the finished product on somebody and how happy they are with the fit and the design. It gives me a lot of rewards. I love seeing clothes that we've made on stage. They're usually pretty nice. They always give us a couple of tickets to see a show.

Speaker 1 19:24

We did some shirts for Jonathan Groff for Justin Time. He actually loves my shirts. We did some stuff for another show. He always wants me to make shirts for him. I've never met him but, he knows he wants me to make them. We do a lot of shirts for shows like Law Order and FBI. I used to make shirts for Tom Selleck for years.

Speaker 1 19:46

Really I didn't watch Blue Bloods, but he was very nice. He was really nice and when he was in his 20s he used to work in men's clothing stores in Los Angeles and we had a wonderful chat about old stores in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 19:59

So at the time they had to come to your shop to be measured, right it depends.

Speaker 1 20:05

Occasionally they'll come to my measured right. It depends Occasionally they'll come to my shop and Tom Selleck, I went to the studio out in Queens to measure them out there.

Speaker 2 20:10

Oh, interesting. So if somebody that's listening today will decide this is what I want to do, what is the first thing they need to do?

Speaker 1 20:19

Go online, learn about whatever you can, and then again, if you're not going to learn how to cut or sew, you really have to look at garments just the same to see how they're manufactured. I don't know how to sew, but I know, when I see a shirt, when something's been done properly or not.

Speaker 2 20:37

So you have to learn. Like anything else, you have to learn it in and out. Are you thinking of growing your business or are you going to stay at this?

Speaker 1 20:45

Well, at this point, you know I've been doing this for a long time. I'm 67. If I really wanted to grow the business, I could, but I don't want to.

Speaker 2 20:55

Why.

Speaker 1 20:56

We're busy. I make a nice living. We do well. My wife and I have a lovely place up here in Bearsville that we love to come to. I have no plans to retire.

Speaker 2 21:07

I may not work as many hours, but soon you're going to have a grandson and you're going to want to leave him a lot of money.

Speaker 1 21:11

Well, I'm excited for that in fact one of my ladies who's retired. I'll give her fabric and she comes back with baby clothes oh, wow and they're the most beautiful fun she made. Uh, and this time she made a little guayabera for like a one-year-old or two-year-old, I don't even know what size it is, but it was.

Speaker 2 21:30

It's fantastic now come to think of it, custom baby clothes is a very good business idea.

Speaker 1 21:36

No, it's not no because it takes just as much time to make a little shirt almost as it does to make a large shirt. So there's no, it's expensive.

Speaker 2 21:48

You never got into women's shirts, right we?

Speaker 1 21:51

do women's occasionally. Men are generally easier. Women will buy one shirt, a certain style. Then they want to do it another way and it's just too complicated for us to make patterns each time.

Speaker 2 22:04

Right.

Speaker 1 22:05

So subtle changes, yes, but I do have women who wear what we might call a uniform and they like wearing the same thing over and over again. Those are the customers that I like. There was a short-lived women's pajama project that I was doing with my wife. They were beautiful, the pajamas, but it just we my wife and I, did not know how to work together there it goes and no it really I am jealous of not jealous but I.

Speaker 1 22:34

When I see husbands and wives work together, it has to be stressful because it comes home right, so you scratched that project.

Speaker 2 22:44

Yeah, good for you. Yeah, what I wanted to ask you about your instagram how do, how do people find you on instagram?

Speaker 1 22:51

my instagram is not nearly as good as it should be, but it's c-e-g-o-n-y-c, so sego custom shirts. Sego stands for carl edward goldberg, and that's how you can find me. I'm famous in a very narrow field. So if you were to Google custom shirts New York, I show up.

Speaker 2 23:13

Okay, excellent, yeah, all right, All right, thank you. Okay, that's a wrap for today. If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job, please let us know. Visit our website at howmuchcanimakeinfo. We would love to hear from you and, on your way out, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with anyone who is curious about their next job. See you next time.