Short men can stand tall while looking stylish

Like a discreet Beverly Hills doctor, Jimmy Au has prescribed and dispensed clothing to Hollywood's shorter leading men since the 1980s.

Many of those actors, including Mark Wahlberg, Danny DeVito, Chris Rock, Al Pacino and Jason Alexander, have never set foot in the Jimmy Au's for Men 5'8" and Under shop in Beverly Hills, Calif. Stylists and costume designers do that for them.

And yet Jimmy Au and son Alan feel they know these celebs well. For starters, Jimmy Au is 5 feet 2; Alan Au is 5 feet 6. Second, Jimmy Au's clothing has been catering to men of similar proportions since 1975. (He started with jockeys on the horse-racing circuit.) Third, the Aus have been able to watch their work on TV -- Au has provided clothing for select actors on more than 25 shows this year alone, including "Grey's Anatomy," "Modern Family" and "The Office."

The Aus have learned that the camera doesn't exactly lie, but it can be lulled into taking a guy up a notch or two.

Clothing proportion and fit are key, especially for the three in 10 American men who are 5 feet 8 or shorter, said Alan Au, who is his dad's client relations manager.

He shares a few family secrets for shorter men.

Watch the crotch. "Wear flat-front pants in a short rise. If the crotch is too low, it makes your legs look stubby. If you're wearing a regular rise with pleats, it makes it even worse," Alan Au said. "The key thing is you want to show as much leg length as possible. Shorter men should wear a short rise pant. With a regular low rise, the proportions are slightly different, and if you have a long torso it will make your legs look shorter than a short rise would." Similarly, don't wear shorts that go below the knee.

Watch the hemming. Many shorter men wear pants too long, whether because they mistakenly think they will elongate their legs or because they don't think to have them tailored. "A slight break is enough, and no cuff," Alan Au said. "Anything bringing attention to your feet is making you look shorter."

But beware of excessive tailoring. If you have to shorten your pants too much, the bottom of the leg becomes too wide. Therein lies another advantage of buying short-rise pants, proportioned to shorter men.

Pay attention to shirts and jackets. A jacket or shirt with trimmer sleeves and higher armholes helps to elongate. "Most jackets are too full, even if designated as a trimmer size. Most shirts are too wide and you're tucking in and bunching a lot of fabric," Au said. "There are little details, like we have smaller pockets that are higher on the chest. Otherwise, the pocket is practically on your waist."

Rewrite the jacket length rule. "The general rule, that guys should be able to grab the bottom of the jacket, works well for taller men. But for shorter men, the jacket should just cover the bottom of your butt. That's because some shorter men might also have proportionally shorter arms." If they follow the original rule, their jacket might be too short.

Finally, Au adds a disclaimer regarding "credit" for dressing Alexander's character on "Seinfeld": The show's costume designers requested clothing that was slightly too small, Au said, to make him look uncomfortable. "The stylist said, 'This is how we're building the character. The awkwardness is purposeful.'