The NEW Power Tool

It started small. One day a week. Casual Friday, they called it. A day when the power suit took a breather, when something a little less, well, power-hungry made an appearance.

Some folks thought its appeal was limited-that a guy couldn’t really take care of business without his trusty suit and tie. Turns out they were wrong. According to a recent study by Levi Strauss & Co., nine out of 10 U.S. companies have casual Friday policies. What’s more, casual Friday has extended its reach from one day to five. The fashion world has even created a new niche for the phenomenon: a thing they’re calling “the third wardrobe”- that vast (and ever-expanding) never-never land between suit and jeans.

The thing is, given their druthers, some guys would rather not do business in a three-button jacket, matching trousers, tie, and white shirt. Even guys at the top- the ones who can afford the handmade suits and $200 ties-prefer clothes that aren’t so buttoned-up.

You might not know it by looking at him, but Blake Davenport owns his own investment company. One glance at his striped cotton shirt and unassuming black trousers, and you could easily write him off as an average Joe. And that’s fine with him.

“A nice office space, nice suits-they never make your business successful,” he says. “It is important to make a good impression, but it’s what’s inside you that gives the impression you want to make.”

When it comes to dressing, Davenport’s priority is simple. “I dress for me,” says the 31 -year-old entrepreneur, who has owned Davenport Interests Inc. since he was 25. “’I figure if it feels good on me, it must look good to everybody else. You might not like the way I dress, but that’s OK with me because I’m comfortable. I’m just not the type of guy who wakes up in the morning and can’t wait to put on a new Bel vest suit.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he adds. “There are times when I love wearing a suit. But 1 have to feel comfortable in it. I have to physically feel good in it. Because if you feel good, you’re going to perform better.”

One reason Davenport is able to thumb his nose at tradition is that he can afford to. He is, after all, his own boss. He can also afford to literally (he does much of his shopping at Stanley Korshak and Neiman Marcus). As such, he’s one of a growing number of successful businessmen who are bucking the rigid fashion dictates that have guided power brokers for so long. These days, not wearing a suit can be proof of a man’s power.

As Davenport points out, “If you have money in your pocket and you know you don’t have to rely on the person who’s sitting across from you to make money, you’re going to wear what you want to wear. I know some guys who have incredibly successful businesses, and they dress in shorts.”

And, he adds, “Style doesn’t necessarily come with a price. This is a $19 Gap shirt,” he says, pointing to his collar. “If I can find a deal, I’ll take it.”

Of course, his closet is also stocked with the finest clothes money can buy (these days he favors the understated, luxurious designs of Luciano Barbera, an Italian designer who’s been called the most elegant man in the world). Just don’t ask him to pinpoint his style. For that, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

“Blake has an appreciation for quality as opposed to flash,” says Bruce Weldyn, men’s fashion director at Stanley Korshak, who advises Davenport and a number of successful businessmen like him. “Guys like Blake are looking for quality garments that make them look good, not necessarily fashionable. They may choose a button-down shirt, but it’ll be made of cashmere. Or a handmade cotton khaki suit that’s $2,000. It’s die ultimate in quality, but it’s considered casual. The only people who will know the difference are the ones who appreciate quality.”

Jack Wolf is a jeans guy. Always has been. Never mind that he’s the president and COO of the M/A/R/C Group, a marketing research company based in Irving.

Unlike many guys, though, the 45-year-old executive has had years of practice. Even when he came to the company 23 years ago, the dress code was extremely relaxed. Twelve years ago, when he started Targetbase Marketing, a database marketing company that’s an offshoot of M/A/R/C, he didn’t see any reason to change things. At both companies, a casual, creative approach to the job filters down from the top.

“Our culture (at the M/A/R/C Group) is not driven by the way we dress,” he says.

“When a new employee shows up. we don’t give them a manual thai says, ’This is how you’ll succeed at our company.’ That’s not what’s important. We’re in an intelligence business-a knowledge-sharing business. We’re trying to solve problems for our clients. If they’re buying an image, they’re buying the wrong thing. And we might as well know that upfront because we’re probably not going to have a good, long-term working relationship with them.”

For Wolf, dressing down isn’t just a personal preference; it’s a way to communicate a key message to his employees. “I think the more relaxed you are-the more open and approachable executive management is- the better you’re able to communicate that.” he says. Over the years, he’s seen a huge shift m how the traditional business world views its policy regarding dress. Not that it’s been a smooth transition. In the beginning, he says, “casual Friday al many large companies was translated into ’OK, I won’t put a tie on, but I’ll still wear a long-sleeved, pressed shirt, slacks, and a sport coat.’ Which was funny to watch. Bui now, even the bastions of uniformity are loosening up. It’s refreshing that companies are now saying, ’We’re not trying to be Stepford Employees.” It’s so much negative energy and focus on things [hat don’t enable you to do your job any better; ii doesn’t produce better results for the client.”

As for his own closet, “I have few suits,” he admits. “I’ve got a tux. I’ve got a range of Dockers, khakis, a lot of golf shirts, and short-sleeve shirts. The percent allocation in my closet would be different than for a lot of people-the number of jeans I have is pretty high. But I still like shopping for suits.”



No name conies up more often in a discussion about dress codes than IBM. For decades, the computer giant set the standard for corporate dress.

“It was white shirts, rep ties, two- or three-piece suits., Period,” says Bruce Boggs, who has been with IBM for 22 years. “Back then, it wasn’t at all uncommon for new people coming in the business to be taken by the arm and led to a men’s shop and helped with their shopping.”

Then about five years ago, IBM began to move away from a formal policy.

“We started with casual Friday, as so many companies did,” says the 46-year-old Boggs, who is now IBM’s general manager for the health care industry/North America. “At first it was like, ’I’ve been let out of the cage; now what?* People would kind of put their toe in the water and try to figure out, ’If 1 take this tie off, what’s going to happen? Is somebody gonna send me home?’ The change began to accelerate with the way work has changed-where people work, when they work, and how they work have changed dramatically.”

Many IBMers, like Boggs, eased into the new way of thinking.

“After 30 years of having one way of dressing, you get a couple of things: You get a mind-set built up, and you get a wardrobe built up,” he says. “You know, ’I’ve got a lot of money invested in these white shirts; I’m not gonna throw them away.’

“And there were a lot of people who just didn’t get it, who thought it was tacky, unprofessional-who struggled tremendously with ’It’s not the way it used to be,’” he says. “I don’t see much of that anymore. But some people never really intellectual-ized the fact that it was a reflection of the marketplace, not a change of management style. Those are the people who either failed to adapt to the new world or just aren’t here any longer.

“It did take me awhile to shift gears.” he admits, “because you get accustomed to that one way. 1 would love to say I was an innovator on that front, but 1 wasn’t. To me, fashion is narrow or wide lapels. Of course, now that I live in Texas and it’s hot for so long, it’s easy.”

These days, his preferred mode of dress is khakis and a casual shirt, although he says, “I spend almost as much time in black tie with customers as I do golf attire. The majority of the time it’s somewhere in between.”

Granted, having so many options does have its down side.

“It used to be, you had a rack of suits. There was no brown; it was either gray or blue, maybe tan-a couple of pinstripes or a chalk stripe if you were feeling really bold,” Boggs says. “Now you’ve got all this stuff that you’ve got to mix and match. But it gets you thinking early in the morning; you can’t just walk in there on autopilot and throw something on.”

Boggs and his casually dressed peers at IBM are what’s been hailed as “the new blue.” The catchy buzz phrase was heralded (not unlike a slick Gap ad) on the cover of the company’s 1997 annual report, which featured a hip-looking thirty something guy in khakis, dark shirt, and polka dot tie. Inside is a parade of fashionable young employees, few of whom don suits.

Boggs says the change isn’t strictly superficial.

“1 think of the annual report cover almost as a recruiting statement,” he says. “A lot of the best talent we’re producing today has a view of the ’suit world’ as yesterday’s news-stifling, oppressive.”



Which brings us to the so-called “third wardrobe.”’ the niche that bridges tailored clothing and sportswear. Jack Hershlag, executive director of the National Association of Men’s Sportswear Buyers, isn’t keen on the term. He prefers to think of the three markets as one wardrobe because, as in a woman’s wardrobe, the parts are interchangeable,

The shift has had some interesting repercussions.

“Sportswear has always been the comfort wardrobe, while tailored clothing has always been the sophisticated end of fashion. But now each pole has leaned to the middle.” Hershlag explains. “So the suits are getting lighter and more responsive to body movement and body shape. A lot of them are cut a little more casually so that if you want to wear them with a black sportshirt or whatever it won’t look like a contradiction.

“Meanwhile, sportswear is getting a bit more tailored, a bit more indoor-oriented to comply with the mood of the office,” he says. “Because even though the mood is more relaxed, it’s not quite a jeans environment.’’

As a result, a new kind of men’s store is beginning to appear-ones like the recently opened Circa 2000 in Piano, which caters to “professionals who don’t have to wear a tie anymore but still want to look professional,” says owner Mike Zack, previously a partner in The Kent Shop, Hugo Boss, and Mondo Collection. “I got tired of hearing my customers say, i don’t wear a suit anymore; what do 1 do?’ So I created a place for them to find something for today’s lifestyle-which is casual, comfortable, relaxed but still dressy. There are a lot of men who don’t understand the difference, They have a pair of Dockers or they have a suit, and they don’t know how to go to work casually.

“I had a customer who’s the CEO of a company and he said, ’We have business casual, but I still need to look like the boss. 1 need the kind of clothes that 1 can get respect from without having a suit.’ That’s the market we’re after, We’re not the Gap or Banana Republic. We’re for the executive for whom golfing is business, and he doesn’t want to look terrible.”

For Zack. educating his clientele is an ongoing process.

“We go to different companies and we give talks,” he says, “’because a lot of men won’t admit they don’t know how to dress casually. And companies want their employees to look professional, but they don’t know how to tell them not to wear a $20 khaki pant and a T-shirt.”

You might think that with so much attention focused on men’s sportswear, the tailored clothing market would be suffering. Actually, that’s not the case at all.

“Both markets are growing,” Hershlag says. “What’s happened here is very strange. By giving men choices, they’re buying more of everything. When men had to wear a lie, it was sort of a uniform and it was dictated from above. But the minute it became an option to not wear a tie, they began to think of a tie as something they’re choosing, so they might choose some variety.”

Bruce Weldyn of Stanley Korshak agrees: “The fact that there are more choices obliges men to become involved. It makes them have to think about what they’re wearing, whereas if you’re putting on a navy suit every day. you already know how to do that. So it raises their awareness and raises their appreciation for sportswear. It also raises the creativity level and offers designers a reason to do things.”

Similarly, it also has opened (he door to a new breed of designer, guys like Dallas-based William Reid. whose upscale sportswear echoes his own fashion aesthetic- blending his background as a fashion executive and a street musician.

“I wanted to do sportswear that had an elegant look but was approachable-something that wasn’t just for runway models: good quality, high style, but with a timeless look,” says Reid, whose Italian-made “suit separates” can be found locally at Stanley Korshak and Circa 2000. “I use very soft, drapey fabrics-things that have texture but are also very lightweight. What I do is very clean, simple, and relaxed.”

Reid. whose designs straddle the line between classic and cutting-edge exceptionally well, counts Matthew McConaughey and some MTV celebrities among his clientele (some of his biggest customers in Dallas, however, are computer software executives).

The thing to remember. Reid says, is that men who buy high-ticket suits want to look great not only in a suit but also in sportswear. “That’s where we fill a void: the guy who has the money to spend on a suit, but wants something to look great when he’s out to dinner, when he doesn’t have to wear the power suit, when he’s on vacation.”

And don’t underestimate the new-money factor.

“Everywhere you go, there’s a lot more youth that’s gaining power and money.” Blake Davenport says. ’”When youth gains power and money, it’s new money. New money will infuse the existing trends. And the existing trend now is more casual.”

TAKING A BELT

Men used to rely on the necktie to distinguish their own pinstripes from the next guy’s. Now that the new dress code threatens to render the necktie obsolete, how’s a man expected to show flair? Two words: The belt. Among those who’ve adopted the new dress code, the belt’s the new tie. For tall, there’s a variety to choose from. According to Fred Bessinger of Pockets Menswear, these are the must-haves:

Handcrafted alligator belt with art deco sterling silver buckle. Wear with: Virtually anything-from a Zegna suit to a pair of casual cotton pants or blue jeans-but not walking shorts. (Alligators arid bare legs don’t mix.)

Classic textural calfskin belt with brushed stainless steel buckle. Wear with: wool gabardine, houndstooth, or mini-herrringbone trousers with a sport shirt (buttoned to the neck) and a blazer.

Nubuck suede with matte brass roller buckle. Wear with: blue jeans.

Split-woven leather belt with roller buckle. Wear with: Walking shorts, blue jeans, or khakis with a polo shirt or golf shirt. -Amy Lowe

STILL NOT CONVINCED EVERY DAY IS CASUAL FRIDAY?

Consider the following: ■Neiman Marcus has developed its own private-label line of “gentlemen’s sportswear,” which debuted in May. Its goal: to fill the void “between Polo and Zegna.”

■The fall ’98 menswear season offers a bumper crop of sweater jackets- unlined cardigans made of luxurious fabrics in rich textures.

■For a while, only Italy’s fashion elite (houses like Prada, Gucci, Jil Sander) were showing supple fabrics, skinny silhouettes, and less structured jackets. Now even Ermenegildo Zegna’s suits show the influence: narrower waistlines, less padding in the shoulders, lighter interlining, and softer fabrics and shapes.

■The trouser market is exploding. Guys want something as comfortable as khakis but nicer. A host of new fabrics are softer, looser, more seasonless. The silhouette is changing a bit, too, from pleated to flat-front. L.B.