What to Watch: Modern Tailored Clothing Continues to Spur Sales
As the pandemic waned and guys headed back to work, got married and started going out to dinners and events once again, they put away their sweatpants and polos and donned suits and sport coats. But it wasn’t their grandfathers’ suits. Instead, they sought out updated styling, often with performance features, and paired the pieces with sweaters, jeans and cool sneakers for a more modern aesthetic.
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Several menswear brands have benefited by leaning into this trend including Suitsupply, Bonobos, State & Liberty and Buck Mason, all of which report strong suit sales among younger men with an expectation that business will continue to strengthen in 2024.
Fokke de Jong, chief executive officer of Suitsupply, said during the height of the pandemic, many naysayers projected the death of the suit, “but our business is very strong.”
However, de Jong, whose company operates 45 stores in North America and more than 100 globally, said most of the business today is geared less for the office and more toward lifestyle choices. “They’re dressing for events and going out,” he said. “We saw it first in Europe and then over the past year and a half in the U.S.”
To appeal to this trend, Suitsupply features suits with more modern styling such as a little wider silhouette with straight-leg pants and high waists, he said. And instead of showcasing the offering with a traditional dress shirt and tie, the suits are paired with less formal options such as polos or V-neck sweaters.
“There’s still a very strong business customer, but the way we style things shows it can be worn three different ways: for a wedding, a business meeting or to a club,” he said.
One thing Suitsupply doesn’t embrace is advanced performance features. “We have stretch but not athleisure suits. Other brands say you can do handstands in their suits, but we think people want to look elegant, and synthetic fibers just don’t offer that aesthetic.”
Looking ahead, de Jong is confident that suit sales will continue to grow. “It’s just starting,” he said. “In fashion, the pendulum is always changing and it was all about streetwear and athleisure for a long time. Now we’re back to a more elevated, dressy space.”
John Hutchison, president of Bonobos, a division of Express Inc., said his company is “seeing strong performance with younger customers. There’s a generation of younger customers who’ve come into adulthood during the COVID era of joggers and hoodies. Some are now entering the workforce, or returning to the office, or simply trying something new, and they want to dress appropriately for where they are in life. We also see our younger customers inspired by menswear influencers, celebrities and athletes and their takes on classic suiting and tailoring on social media.”
Hutchison said while some of these younger shoppers are buying full suits, more of them are purchasing suit separates, such as the brand’s knit blazer that performed very well during the fall season and will continue to be highlighted in the future.
“We are definitely seeing our guy experiment with styling their ‘traditional’ suiting attire, whether it’s suits paired with sweater polos, the blazer with a more casual bottom, or suit pants worn as a stand-alone item for versatility/office settings,” he said.
Often they’re also seeking performance features from their apparel. “Most of our core suiting assortment has a hint of stretch for comfort while our suiting wool fabrication provides natural moisture-wicking properties. That said, we do see increased interest in seasonal suiting fabrics like wool flannel, tweed and linen. Combined with our variety of fit options for both blazers and trousers, our suited guy looks and feels great.”
Another brand popular with young guys is State & Liberty. The company started by making and selling dress shirts for fit athletic guys online in 2015, but has since expanded into a variety of other products, all with a similar aesthetic. It operates 27 stores in North America.
Today, the Michigan-based company offers tailored clothing and outerwear, polos, quarter-zips, chinos and other products.
“We didn’t come out with suits until 2020,” said cofounder Steven Fisher. “Before that, everyone thought suits would be dead forever, but guys are out in the world again and want to look good.”
Because of its target customer, State & Liberty’s suits offer lightweight, breathable, moisture-wicking and wrinkle-free features in a silhouette that is wider in the shoulders and tapered at the waist. Suits retail for around $550 off the rack and the company also offers custom options.
“We’ve found stores to be super successful for us,” he said, “so we’ll be opening more and expanding our product offering. Before, we just had navy and black suits, but now we offer different patterns and fabrics.”
Another company that recently expanded into tailored clothing is Buck Mason. The brand was founded in 2013 in Venice, Calif., by Sasha Koehn and Erik Allen Ford, and began by making high-quality jeans and T-shirts before expanding into other products such as oxford shirts, all with a California casual classic bent. It now operates 30 stores around the U.S.
“We started the company when we were twentysomething and we’re now fortysomething and the way we think about dressing changed,” Ford said.
So this fall they introduced the West Coast Ivy collection, which it touts as “a new take on Old School dressing.” That translates into suits in full canvas construction, soft shoulder construction and a three-button roll to two silhouette that they style with a bandana under an open-collar shirt, tennis shoes or jeans.
Koehn said the brand started dipping into the category close to three years ago with an unconstructed cotton poplin blazer and trouser. “We had a lot of success,” he said. And West Coast Ivy has also proven to be a hit. “It’s doing incredibly well,” Ford said.
The top seller is the Countryman jacket, they said, Buck Mason’s take on a tweed hunting jacket, along with the Graduate suit, a traditional three-season wool suit.
“I’ve never understood grown men dressing like basketball players,” Ford said. “We believe in dressing appropriately and want to build clothing so men can feel great.”
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