This New Clothing Brand Is Perfect For Cigar Connoisseurs

Cigar aficionados, rejoice. One of the industry’s biggest champions, author Aaron Sigmond has recently launched SIGARWEAR, a collection of ready-to-wear and a scented candle with cigar smokers in mind. The author of Assouline’s The Impossible Collection Of Cigars and Playboy: The Book of Cigars has created made-to-order shirts that have pockets large enough to hold plenty of cigars, and other design details that cigar connoisseurs will love, like a patent-pending “cigar shell” pocket. He speaks to us about the collection, its design, and craftsmanship today. 

Why did you decide to launch SIGARWEAR?

Like so many recent entrepreneurial undertakings, SIGARWEAR started as a pandemic project — something that was dreamt up during quarantine. And truthfully, it wasn’t my idea. It was my business partner and long-time tailor’s, Max Girombelli, proprietor of Duca Sartoria New York, a custom made-to-measure atelier on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Or at least for what became the Core Collection was his idea. As a dedicated cigar smoker, I am always looking for a way to carry cigars on me, but in an unencumbered and discreet manner. Traditionally most cigar aficionados wear the classic Cuban guayabera—the large pockets can accommodate a bounty of cigars. However, the guayabera doesn’t fall into my personal style preferences, nor Max’s. We wanted something closer to a contemporary Italian camp collar shirt, but one with the ability to carry one’s precious Havanas or Dominican cigars. Max designed a number of sample shirts, all with iterations of our now patent-pending and trademarked signature two-finger cigar shell™ pocket. The field jacket and vest, as well as trousers and Bermuda shorts with the three-finger cigar shell pocket followed. 

Wanting to build on the overall concept and was inspired by niche/boutique brands like Bape, Human Made, Supreme, and global brands, like Louis Vuitton, I thought it would be fun to do periodic, limited-edition, one-off collaborative drops of different personal and home accessories. The SIGARWEAR No. 11 candle was done with Brooklyn-based fragrance studio and handcrafted candlemaker Joya. The SIGARWEAR artist series ashtray No. 1 is by ceramicist Dean Roper. More limited drops are already in the pipeline.

Is there really a need for clothing that incorporates cigars?

The clastic guayabera is a Latin American (in Mexico, it is the “Mexican wedding shirt”), Caribbean (Cuban), South Florida, and Texas menswear staple, and has been since the mid-twentieth century. However, the basic design concept goes all the way back to the 18th century. By the late nineteenth century, according to, The Guayabera: A Shirts Story: “Archival records describe the guayabera as a shirt or jacket, which may have resembled the uniforms of Spanish and Cuban soldiers of the period. Unlike the contemporary guayabera, these military garments featured four pockets positioned along the hem.” Today the four pockets are positioned with two at the waist/hem and two breast pockets, with the top pockets exceedingly suitable for cigars. A Shirts Story continues, “Other sources describe its use in the countryside by Cuban landowners and field workers.” Regardless, typically, one of the breast pockets was reserved for cigars.

The made-to-order SIGARWEAR Core Collection shirts in long and short sleeve, available in two fabrics and multiple colors, are a distinctive fusion of the Cuban guayabera and the Italian camp collar shirt. It’s a natural menswear evolutionary step. As for the utility nature of the shirt, one needs a cigar shirt as much as one needs a dive watch that never gets wet, desk divers as they are called.

How does the cigar shell pocket protect cigars?

The signature two-finger and three-finger cigar shell pocket is a combination of a rather innovative textile engineering incorporated into a proprietary pocket design, combined with a removable hand-stitched soft Italian leather “shell” or case that works in conjunction with the pocket design to protect the wearers’ cigars. The design is original to Max, and it works flawlessly. I have been wearing various SIGARWEAR samples for over a year, and it’s an ideal system. I mean, it’s not carbon fiber or Kevlar, but for normal use, it works perfectly and comes in two sizes. One accommodates more traditional-size cigars, the other bigger sizes favored by many cigar smokers these days.  

What inspired the design? Are there any historical elements related to cigar culture?

SIGARWEAR Core Collection is Italian-made, three-season apparel — that will take one from spring through the end of autumn — designed with the discerning cigar enthusiast in mind. Each traditionally tailored core-collection garment is made to order and constructed from high-quality fabrics for today’s casual and active lifestyle — all while maintaining a refined sartorial sensibility. The Core Collection is cut for a comfortable fit and perfectly suited for city, country, and travel dressing. 

Again, the initial inspiration for the shirts was the classic Guayabera, and Italian camp collar shirts, the field jackets and are essentially just that, with the addition of the cigar shell pocket, of course.

Where is the collection produced?

The Core Collection is handmade in Italy. The limited-edition home and personal accessories will be made wherever our respective partners are located. The candle was made in New York City, and the ashtrays are made in St Louis, Missouri.  

You have taken a unique, more personalized approach to distribution. Can you describe the experience and why you went this direction?

Shopping online via an e-commerce site and via a social media link is massively impersonal. So, we decided to take the very opposite approach when it comes to the Core Collection… That being a far more personalized style than most digitally driven brands. Truthfully, while not identical, SIGARWEAR has decidedly based its customer service style — be it in person at a trunk show or the NYC atelier, or a completely virtual exchange — on Max’s signature old-world, personal, hospitality-driven customer care approach that he has perfected over the years while tending to his custom made-to-measure patrons — the emphasis is decidedly on old-school service. So, while we exclusively promote SIGARWEAR on Instagram via the @sigcigar and @sigarwear feeds, the Core Collection experience only starts there. After that all exchanges are either via Zoom, email or in-person — a combination there of. For us Instagram is exclusively a marketing and promotions tool — a means to get the word out. It is far from the whole of the experience, as is the case with so many brands. When it comes to the accessories and other limited edition items, that is a traditional e-commerce experience, but not the Core Collection.

What elements of craftsmanship are most important to you?

The one element that I suppose is most important to me personally is a tad bit cliché, nonetheless, clichés exist for a reason, and that element is ‘passion.’

As for the rest, it’s easy to say that the basis of my entire career and writings are founded on the great admiration of artisanal and traditional craftsmanship — irrespective if that craft is sartorial, millinery, hand-rolled cigars, craft distillates, hand-assembled and finished fine Swiss timepieces, hand-honed knives, and so on. As such, I couldn’t narrow it all down to all-encompassing elements per se — everything is important. As the Mies van der Rohe attributed expression goes, “The devil is in the details.” So, in short, everything matters. It really does, which is why passion is precious and paramount. 

What are the hidden components that are the most special or unique?

Again, certain details that make one smile. A personal embroidered message or secret pocket in a garment. The very nature of bespoke, bench-made, made-to-measure, and made-to-order is the combination of artisanship and whimsy. Look at the Fabergé eggs — superlative, truly sublime craftsmanship, with an element of delight. Achieving the blending of crafts and fancy is what it’s all about. If not, buy off the peg and be done with it.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.