From Supply Chains to Custom Shirts: Rethinking How Clothing Is Made

Jan Schütte is the founder of LE CHEMISEUR®, a Paris-based shirt company that produces on demand and uses AI to size every order. Before starting his business, he spent six years in the automotive industry, focused on production systems and efficiency. In this interview, he talks about moving from cars to clothing, how his company uses data to make better-fitting shirts, and why he chose a made-to-order model.

You went from Toyota’s supply chain to making shirts. That's an unusual career move.

In the automotive industry, I spent six years obsessing over waste elimination. Every part is made just in time, nothing sits in a warehouse. Then I looked at the fashion industry and saw the opposite: massive overproduction, 25 to 30 percent return rates, unsold inventory destroyed at the end of every season. I thought: what if you applied just-in-time manufacturing to clothing? In 2014, I moved to Paris and founded LE CHEMISEUR® — a shirt brand where every shirt is produced only after the customer orders it. Made to measure by default, made on demand by principle. Zero stock, zero waste.

Your system calculates fit from just three inputs. How does that actually work?

The customer enters their weight, height, and age. Our proprietary algorithm — trained on data from over 50,000 real customers — computes all the measurements needed for a perfectly fitting shirt: collar, chest, waist, sleeve length, everything. It even adjusts for each fabric's specific stretch and shrinkage properties. The result is an average return rate of 5 percent across all orders — first-time orders naturally run a bit higher, but our Fit Key means repeat orders almost always nail the fit on the first try. The industry average sits at 25 to 30 percent.

And if the fit isn’t right?

Then we adjust it. Customers give feedback, we refine the measurements, and update their profile for future orders. In most cases, that can be done without sending the product back. Over time, the system gets more precise with every iteration.

You talk about a »Fit Key«. What role does it play?

Each shirt comes with a unique 5-character code printed inside the back yoke — the Fit Key, patented in 2012 and unique in our industry. It stores the customer's full fit profile. For repeat orders, that code is all you need — one click and the same shirt arrives. It simplifies the process significantly and lowers the barrier to reorder.

You're B Corp certified. How important is sustainability in your model?

It's built into the model by design. Because every shirt is made to order, there's zero overproduction. No unsold inventory, no end-of-season sales, no waste. Our fabrics are sourced almost exclusively from European mills — French and Italian. Our production partner in Tunisia has been with us since 2015, with over 70 full-time employees. We ship by truck and boat — no air freight — and use zero plastic in our packaging. Our carbon footprint is 43 percent below the fashion e-commerce average.

Custom products are often more expensive. How do you approach pricing?

Because AI replaces the most expensive step: the manual fitting process. No retail chain, no tailor appointment, no fitting-room overhead. We operate one showroom in Paris for customers who want a physical visit, but 90 percent of revenue comes from online orders. The customer does everything in three minutes on our website, and we pass those savings on. Our bestseller — a French poplin shirt, slightly stretchy, easy to iron — costs 129 euros. That's less than what you'd pay at most premium off-the-rack brands, but it's made specifically for you.

You're now expanding into the German-speaking market. Why now?

I'm German-born, so this market has always been personal. But I wanted to wait until the product was truly ready — and it is. The AI is mature, we're profitable at around 2 million euros in revenue, growing year-on-year. German-speaking customers value quality, precision, and transparency. Our ambition: to become the reference for shirts in the DACH region within five years. For me personally, it's a homecoming.