Between comfortable and sexy (3)
29 Jun 2009 2 Comments
in Fit Better, Lightweight Wool, Spare Time Tags: Awesome Fitting Trousers, Baggy Pants, Better-looking Backyard, Cashmere, Casual Dress Trousers, Corduroy, Fit Model, Generational Thing, Saggy, Wool
I just stood there—I was the fit model—surrounded by a million women with pins, through five fittings, and they applied everything they knew to my pants. It’s an Italian gift, this understanding of the 3-D nature of the body.”
One new company, sold only through a Web site, and advertised simply as “awesome fitting trousers,” has made a better-looking backyard its calling card. Three years ago, Brian Spaly was just another guy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, who in his spare time altered his saggy, baggy pants on his girlfriend’s sewing machine to fit better. (You know, like we all did.) He made and sold a few pair to friends, several of whom came back for more. A school friend, Andy Dunn, saw business potential, and in 2007, the company went online.
Bonobos, based in New York, has found a simple product that sells—that is, casual dress trousers in fabrics like lightweight wool, corduroy and cashmere that cost $ 110 to $ 310; and, most important, that fit a man’s legs and seat more like jeans do, courtesy of a novel curved waistband, a medium rise, a narrow-cut thigh and a couple of well-placed darts above each cheek. Last fall, even as the retail sector nosedived, Bonobos sales increased steadily each month, from $ 163,000 in August to $ 270,000 in December, Dunn said, adding that the average customer bought four pairs. What the new fit does is walk a careful line between comfortable and sexy.
“The intersection of the two is crucial,” said Bill Kang, 27, a marketing executive in New York. “I think it’s a generational thing to some extent. When my father has been with me when I’m getting a jacket or pants fitted, he’ll say, ‘That’s too tight.’ It’s different now.” NYT
