PSFK sat bottomward with Mizzen Main architect and CEO Kevin Lavelle, who brought able-bodied wear’s moisture-wicking achievement fabrics to the archetypal dress shirt
Who hasn’t sweated through a morning at a board or, worse still, a job interview? We’ve developed to apprehend a little advice from activewear afterwards a admeasurement of achievement fabrics, best abundantly Nike Dri-FIT, that are engineered to air-conditioned the athlete’s anatomy and wick abroad sweat. And if the constant acceptance of athleisure proves anything, it’s that actuality adequate feels good. Kevin Lavelle, architect of Mizzen Main, ample that the aforementioned should administer for workplaces that haven’t absolutely accustomed the sneaker and bodice aesthetic.
Lavelle’s menswear cast launched bristles years ago with a band of dress shirts fabricated from achievement fabric. Since then, Mizzen Main has broadcast to slacks, sweaters, polos and, best recently, flannels, all of which are fabricated in the U.S. The constructed fabrics the cast uses in its accoutrement abide wrinkles and wick damp as able-bodied as gym clothes, but attending as buttoned up as Brooks Brothers.
Unsurprisingly, the Mizzen Main collection has bound become a admired amid athletes. Tim Tebow afresh attempt a video promo for the company, while J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans serves as cast ambassador. Lavelle estimates that 400 pro athletes and sports executives, including Dallas Mavericks buyer Mark Cuban and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, abrasion his products. “They animate in achievement fabrics, and they’re traveling all the time so this is absolute for them,” he said.
Lavelle has been accurate about the company’s retail strategy, architecture the cast through online sales but additionally lobbying for a concrete attendance at menswear boutiques, golf shops and, starting this year, Nordstrom administration food about the country. He aggregate his thoughts on the assemblage of direct-to-consumer brands and adequate retail, and what goes into authoritative Mizzen Main.
On starting a menswear brand—without a accomplishments in appearance and apparel
Kevin Lavelle: I formed as a administration adviser for a few years and again as an activity advance analyst, and had this crazy abstraction for a achievement bolt dress shirt. That came in college, aback I had an internship in D.C.—which accomplished me I never capital to assignment in D.C., but it was a adequate acquaintance nonetheless—and watched a guy run into [an office] architecture aloof blood-soaked in sweat. I thought, why not accomplish a dress shirt out of achievement fabrics?
This was about the time that achievement polos had become not alone adequate but boilerplate on the golf course, area at aboriginal you did not abrasion bolt on the golf course. Slowly, that started to change, and again the professionals started cutting it, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. So why wouldn’t you abrasion a dress shirt fabricated out of achievement fabrics? If the aforementioned affair could appear in the apple of golf—a very, absolute adequate industry—why not do it in dress shirts?
The abstraction backward with me for abounding years and I eventually absitively that I’ve got to accord it a shot. So I spent about a year in artefact development, aloof acquirements aggregate I could about fibers and fabrics and textiles, and tech packs and what it takes to accomplish a shirt–how abundant added difficult it is to accomplish one than it is to accomplish a thousand. I had the aboriginal ancestor at the end of 2011, and we launched in July of 2012. Since again it’s aloof been a rocket ship; we’ve been growing extensively. We’re primarily an online brand, but we’re additionally agitated today in about 450 food about the country. Those are alone specialty menswear stores, blooming grass pro shops, and again we’re in 34 Nordstrom doors today.
We accept two pop-ups: one actuality in SoHo, which will run through the end of the year, and one in Fort Worth, Texas, which will run through the end of the year and into January as well. It’s a abundant way for us to agreement in active our own retail food and not necessarily accept the abiding commitment. It’s no abstruse that there’s a lot of amplitude about Manhattan and about SoHo specifically, so it gives us some adaptability to try some altered things out afterwards necessarily animate what we’re activity to do. We’ve alone been about for bristles years, and a lot of retail leases are bristles to 10 years, so let’s amount out what we’re accomplishing as a aggregation aboriginal afore we accomplish to [a charter that’s] best than we’ve been alive.
It’s a adventitious for bodies to collaborate with Mizzen Main as we ability our brand, rather than through third-party retailers, which—we accept a lot of abundant partners, but it’s a altered affair to acquaintance a cast the way the cast has advised it.
On achievement articles and U.S. manufacturing
We accept two primary fabrics and shirt collections. Our Leeward accumulating is a amplitude alloyed fabric. It’s a little bit crisper, a little added like a adequate shirt. Our Spinnaker accumulating is cool stretchy—it’s a amplitude affiliate so aloof a fundamentally altered fabrication. The fibers are different, the activity is different, the duke is different, the amplitude is altered but, ample strokes, it’s still moisture-wicking, it’s wrinkle-resistant, you don’t accept to adamant it or dry apple-pie it. Take it out of the abrasion machine, put it on a hanger and it’s accessible to wear.
There are a lot of wrinkle-resistant dress shirts out there but those are acrid actinic treatments that are activated to the fabrics themselves. That’s why guys consistently accuse about breach elbows because there’s a analysis on there that degrades the shirt itself and gives it a little bit of a acrid hand. The contraction attrition and all the characteristics of [Mizzen Main] shirts, that’s aloof what bolt are. You aloof don’t accept to anguish about a lot of the aforementioned things you do with affection with a synthetic, afterwards putting it through actinic treatments.
We buy some bolt from LA and some bolt from North Carolina, and again additionally some from Taiwan because, the amplitude alloyed in particular, no one in the United States makes amplitude wovens in this capacity. I ambition that we could buy it actuality but absolutely there’s no architect that alike tries to accomplish our Leeward bolt actuality in the U.S.
So we accompany bolt from all over the apple into Philadelphia and New York—we’re in four or bristles factories appropriate now—and again we do all of our cut and sew assignment actuality in the U.S., so it is cut and sewn actuality in the United States. Again we do our administration out of Dallas. We are consistently alive with our mills to try and consistently advance the bolt itself and the action and accomplish abiding that we’re accepting consistently the best affection and the best consistency.
On sustainability in the appearance industry
By their absolute nature, not accepting to put [our shirts] through the dryer and not accepting to accelerate them to the dry cleaner makes them a abundant added eco-friendly artefact over the continued term. There are some eco-friendly dry cleaners, but mostly it’s a appealing acrid process. And again the activity adored by not accepting to put them through the dryer—we’ve never quantified it, but that absolutely would be a fun agreement to say how abounding megawatts of activity we’ve adored over the aftermost bristles years for our customers.
Also, the places we buy our dress shirt bolt from are bluesign certified, which is an all-embracing acceptance to accomplish abiding they’re afterward accustomed [environmental] protocols. We visited the mills that we assignment with beyond and domestically; at the end of the day, bluesign is article that we feel adequate continuing behind.
The abutting appearance above that is article we abide to attending at in agreement of recycled polyesters and others, but we accept smiled at the dollars and activity adored by not accepting to go to the dry cleaner—both the brainy activity of accepting to go to the dry cleaner and additionally the absolute activity of putting what guys abrasion day in and day out through those processes. That’s article that we angle behind, but it’s not article that we absolutely advance bodies to say this is an eco-friendly, acceptable artefact because you won’t accompany it to the dry cleaner—that’s aloof one of the added benefits.
Especially with the non-iron treatments on some of the affection shirts, if you abrasion the shirt already or two to three times a month—if you anticipate about the circling of a accepted guy’s closet—you’re activity to apprehension through those shirts afore too continued because the bend is a anemic point. We see it online, we see barter saying, basically, ‘I alone wore brands xyz, I’m annoyed of agreeable elbows, I’m activity to go get Mizzen Main.’ Not accepting to bandy out your shirt absolutely has its own basic of sustainability as well.
On retail channels: direct-to-consumer, administration food and more
I knew from the absolute alpha that consumers would be what collection the abiding amount conception for Mizzen Main, and that consumers would change the industry’s acumen of achievement fabrics in adequate menswear. The aboriginal few barter shows we went to, we were basically laughed out of the building. Everyone said no one will anytime abrasion this product, or maybe some of those bodies who don’t apperceive what they’re accomplishing would abrasion it—very dismissive. But we aloof kept assuming up, and our barter we affairs it online and continuing to buy it online. We got our aboriginal two broad accounts, and again at the abutting appearance we got two more, the abutting appearance we got four added and afterwards about two and bisected years we were in 30 retail doors beyond the country.
Somewhat aboveboard and somewhat stubbornly, I was absolute focused on accepting a attendance in the broad industry, in the bazaar and specialty world, because I knew how important it would be for bodies to feel the artefact and be able to try it on. Some of our barter accept no advisedly about [saying], “Performance bolt dress shirt, that’s awesome, I’ll try that.” And they apperceive if it doesn’t assignment they’ll aloof accelerate it back, because it’s chargeless aircraft and chargeless returns—that’s affectionate of what it takes to run an online cast today.
Something angled in 2015. By the average of 2015 we were in 100 retail doors, and again it aloof kept going. As I said, now we’re in 450. At the end of 2016, we’d had abundant drive in the specialty stores—I anticipate Nordstrom had aloof affectionate of been cat-and-mouse to see, will they survive, and what [does] the advance of the cast attending like, and what’s their afterward online? All of that was the blameless amphitheater with Nordstrom actuality absolutely the brilliant on top or the icing on the cake, to say, this is the ultimate industry blessing. We’re in 34 Nordstroms today and we’ll be in 50 at the end of the year, and we started in two at the alpha of this year. It’s working. The artefact is active cartage to Nordstrom doors because bodies appetite to go see the new styles, they appetite to blow it, they appetite to feel it.
We’ve been absolute admiring of our ally in broad and our retail ally because we don’t abatement [on our own site]. We’ve been committed to that from the alpha because as an American-made brand, I can’t allow to alpha acerbic the margins to an unsustainable level. For best retailers, they’re angry the cast every day because the brands are accomplishing the aforementioned affair but abundant cheaper online, with chargeless aircraft and no sales tax for a lot of them. Retail accounts are absolutely agog about our affiliation because [we would not] rather accept you buy online because we accomplish added money.
We appetite every guy in the apple to accept 10 of these shirts in their closet, and that does not appear through one channel. It happens through golf and online and Nordstrom and retail partners, pop-up shops and eventually maybe our own store. So we’ve consistently capital to be accessible to all of our barter wherever they ability be able to acquisition us.
Mizzen Main
