DressMonkey.com, a Web-based San Diego apparel company founded by two self-described "office monkeys" with a passion for fashion, is selling affordable, custom-made clothes for professional men.

While "affordable" and "custom-made" are usually clashing concepts, DressMonkey co-founder Jeff Horowitz said the company pulls it off by having its clothes made in China, where contract tailors and factories work for much less.

Horowitz, 27, came up with the idea for DressMonkey while working for a logistics company in China. Horowitz and Coley Dale, his DressMonkey partner and former roommate, often visited Shanghai's famed fabric market to have shirts and suits custom-made.

At the market, where hundreds of tailors operate stalls, visitors select fabrics and buttons and can have copies of designer wear made for a fraction of the cost.

"It's what a lot of foreigners who come to Shanghai do, go to this huge market, select the fabric and, a week later, get three to four suits," said Horowitz, who returned to the United States in 2006 to attend graduate school. "So we thought, why not put this online for people who don't go to Asia but would like the service and the savings."

Using contract Chinese tailors who turn custom measurements into patterns, and a Chinese factory to do the stitch work, DressMonkey boasts that it delivers better quality than top brand names that have apparel lines mass-produced in China.

The DressMonkey Web site offers a selection of blazers and sport coats and, soon, will introduce a line of pants. To order, a customer goes online, provides his measurements and selects fabric, color and style. Four to six weeks later, he receives his clothing.

The blazers, which come in cotton, tweed, linen, wool, corduroy or velvet, can range from $100 to $230. Personalization options such as a cell phone pocket, or extras like silk lining, can add to the total.

Janine Blain, a trend and brand consultant for the retail industry, said the concept of online custom-clothing is "interesting new territory," but faces challenges.

"It's too early to tell if customers will be satisfied without touching and trying on first," said Blain, director of Los Angeles-based Directives West. "Many times people shop online with a brand they know well, they are a follower of that brand, they know the brand fits them, so it is not an unknown as they shop."

Some DressMonkey customers say they like the company's anti-brand style, as well as its hip, tongue-in-cheek sensibility.

The Web site is easy to use and makes for amusing reading - "We aim to appeal to that inner voice that says, 'I'm different' even if no one is paying attention" - and viewing, they say.

For instance, to help customers with their measurements, DressMonkey offers an online sizing video called "It's A Pleasure to Measure." The video depicts a comely woman who, with the occasional provocative flick of a measuring tape, takes the traditional shoulder, length, waist, chest and sleeve measurements of a somewhat dazed-looking man.

Taylor Llewllyn of Washington, D.C., said he learned about DressMonkey "word-of-mouth," and ordered two jackets from the company. Llewllyn now recommends it to his friends.

"Being able to get something customized was a new experience for me because it's not like I'm one of those super-rich people who can go get everything made from scratch," said Llewllyn, 25. "The jackets were better quality and absolutely more customized then getting something off the rack.

"It's not like going to a British tailor and going through multiple sizings," Llewllyn said. "But that wouldn't be realistic for $150 jacket."

Starting DressMonkey was not a simple endeavor, Horowitz said. One of the biggest challenges was finding a Chinese clothing factory, which might produce 10,000 pieces of one item for a big apparel company, that was willing to take small-quantity, custom orders.

"The Chinese are great businessmen, but you never quite know what to expect," said Horowitz, who speaks fluent Mandarin. "There was a lot of, 'Yes we can do this, yes, yes, yes.' We called them the Yes Men of China.

"We had a lot of verbal agreements that didn't pan out, and that set us back in the early stages of the business."

Ultimately, the partners found reliable Chinese firms to work with, and with a $30,000 initial investment, launched DressMonkey in January 2006. This year, they expect to book more than $500,000 in sales.

Today, Horowitz runs the Internet customer order and marketing part of the business from his San Diego home. Dale runs the production and export side in Shanghai.

Along with running the business, Horowitz is finishing his master's degree at the University of California San Diego's School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Once he graduates, Horowitz said he plans to turn his full attention to building up the fledgling firm.

In addition to increasing the online business, DressMonkey is forging partnerships with boutique shops to produce their own labels, Horowitz said.

"We have a lot of relationships with fabric suppliers and mills in China, so we can offer small boutiques the economics of scale that they couldn't have before," Horowitz said. "We can have 20 to 50 blazers made for them with their own design and label.

"We're not looking to go into a Kmart or a Nordstrom, that's not what we are about. We want to keep DressMonkey funky, playful, not stuffy."