Working Style part of a 'perfect storm'

From My Heels Are Killing Me, 5:00 pm on 29 September 2017

A rising interest in menswear is a global trend and New Zealand label Working Style have experienced the ebbs and flows of what it means to be in the suit game. Sonia Sly heads to Auckland to meet founder Chris Dobbs and Creative Director Karl Clausen.

 

Today’s man has a different cut to his jib, Working Style’s creative director Karl Clausen says.

 

Creative Director Karl Clausen

Creative Director Karl Clausen Photo: Supplied

 

Sonia Sly uncovers the the highs and lows of running a successful menswear business with Working Style in the latest episode of My Heels Are Killing Me.

 

“There’s certainly a less corporate handwriting,” Clausen says.

 

“Everything is more understated [and] now with the deformalisation of a man’s wardrobe everything has a softer tone to it.

 

"A suit isn’t only worn with a shirt and tie these days - men are looking for something to put a spring in their step and they’re more focused on clothing than ever before.”

 

That’s partly because of shifting lifestyle demands, but also the rise in young men not wanting to look like their dad.

 

 

In part, it’s a 'perfect storm' of garment technology and new fabrications and cloths’ but also, men are finally embracing everything that fashion has to offer.

 

Chris Dobbs founded Working Style 30 years ago

Chris Dobbs founded Working Style 30 years ago Photo: Courtesy of Working Style

 

"Eighteen to 25-year-olds are loving wearing formal clothing," Working Style founder Chris Dobbs says. 

 

"They’re being raised by men who haven’t been wearing suits, [so] they’re not dressing like their dad - they’re dressing because they like that look," he says. 

 

Today, with global influences filtering through, there’s a freedom to how men want to express themselves with clothing. Dobbs says there’s less pressure for men to conform to how they think they ‘should’ dress.

 

“Older men are working with young guys who are looking incredibly sharp, so it’s lifted the standard and the good thing for us is they’re buying more clothes,” says Dobbs.   

Klausen and Dobbs have seen a dramatic shift in the way men are shopping. That aligns with Mintel’s report last year showing the global menswear market is expected to grow by 22.5 percent by 2020.

The Working Style man is aware of global trends

Photo: Supplied

Dobbs founded Working Style 30 years ago on a $6000 overdraft. It all began when his first career in the money markets fell through. But while that could have had a negative impact on a young man, one aspect of the experience remained. 

 

“It wasn’t what I was good at [but] I realised that everyone needed a shirt for every day of the working week.”

 

That revelation spurred the birth of Working Style. Dobbs started making shirts and selling them to friends, until orders grew from 10 to 100. For a young Dobbs, it was a process of learning how to run a business and figuring out how to make a high quality garment.

 

“We got our good-looking friends to do the modelling and our not-so-good looking friends to help sell them,” laughs Dobbs, as he pulls out images from the label’s first photo shoot.  

 

Today online shopping allows us to buy clothing today without even trying on a single garment. But back in 1987, Dobbs and his friends were knocking on doors with leather suitcases full of fabric samples in tow, taking made-to-measure orders. On a busy day, they were doing back-to-back appointments every thirty minutes.

 

Dobbs says it’s crazy to think back to how they got the business off the ground and there’s an excited glint in his eyes when he talks about the craft of shirt making.

 

“It’s a beautiful thing to see how a shirt is made and to understand the process that goes into it and the manual techniques to do something as simple as turning a collar.”

But Dobbs also recalls the downside to those early days and a few unhappy customers.

“I apologise to anyone who might have purchased a shirt though that period because of the odd quality problem [including] buttons that seemed to come off at too high a rate,” he says.

Thirty years on, all of that is well behind the menswear brand.

“It’s an exciting time for men’s clothing because it’s gotten so much more sophisticated than when we started,” Dobbs says.

Listen to the podcast to find out how men shop differently to women and why a dalliance into womenswear was one of the label’s biggest mistakes.

The early days of Working Style

The early days of Working Style Photo: Supplied.

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