By COLlive reporter
Like many entrepreneurial tales, the story of how Mizzen & Main landed a $1.2 million investment has to do with both persistence and luck.
The company’s CEO and founder Kevin Lavelle was actively looking to raise additional capital for his fast-growing brand and tried to interest David Schottenstein, founder of Astor & Black Custom Clothiers and Swiss Stays.
But Schottenstein left the industry after selling Astor and Black in March of 2011 and moved on to found Viewabill, the legal software bill tracking application, along with Robbie Friedman and famed attorney Alan Dershowitz.
“Many clothing brands offered me equity to get involved, but I wasn’t interested in getting back in clothing,” Schottenstein, a charitable supporter of Chabad institutions, told COLlive.com in a phone conversation.
To get him on board, Mizzen & Main sent their staple item – a spread collar “no-sweat” dress shirt made of their proprietary athletic fabric – to Schottenstein’s home in Miami, Florida.
“The box with the shirt sat in my house for 6 months, until my wife discovered it and asked if I want to use it or should she give it away,” Schottenstein recalls. “I said I’d try it on and the second that I put it on, I knew this was something special.”
What caught his attention –and many fashion and men’s publications– was the moisture wicking fabric that allows sweat to seep through the shirt and not accumulate on it along with the comfort and breathability of the fabric. He likens it to not wearing a shirt at all.
It also has a trim fit, stretches in four directions and is wrinkle free with no ironing and dry cleaning needed. The best way to clean it is machine wash cold and then hanging it to dry (“for 16 minutes”).
The idea to create a new shirt came when Kevin Lavelle worked in Washington, D.C. and watched a congressional staffer running into a very important meeting – soaked in sweat from the summer heat.
His shirt looked to be two different colors, sticking to him, and all-around terrible looking, Lavelle recalls. This was right around the time performance polo shirts started to become popular in golf and tennis. and the idea for a moisture wicking dress shirt was born.
“This isn’t another shirt. It is a game changer,” Schottenstein says. “They are doing to shirts what Tesla is doing to automobiles. They took a whole new approach to men’s wear, so I became the lead investor.”
Mizzen & Main raised the $1.2 million from Schottenstein, VegasTechFund and other individuals. Earlier investors were author Marcus Luttrell and Paul Danforth of Creative Artists Agency.
The company sells its dress shirts, as well as t-shirts and henleys, blazers and jeans online and at a selection of Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s branches around the country. The shirts, both fabric and construction, are all Made in the USA.
With Saks Fifth Avenue recently announcing that they will be expanding the line to more of their stores around the country, Lavelle says that one of the company’s biggest challenges is keeping up with the growth and demand. Their online sales are experiencing monthly double digit growth.
Their dress shirt sells for $125. Schottenstein says its a worthwhile investment. “The price might seem high but you never have to do dry cleaning again,” he says. “It’s like spending more for a Tesla but then never having to pay for gas again.”
Although their shirts don’t go on sale, Mizzen & Main offered a promotional discount code to readers of COLlive.com. To receive a $25 gift certificate for every $250 spent on MizzenAndMain.com and type COLLIVE in the promo code.
The fabric is dramatically more breathable than cotton and unlike the standard poly people are used to!
selections of women’s wear (shirts in particular) have been made like this for well over a decade *shrug*
note: it would also seemingly increases sweating and decreases breathability given the material its made of being of the poly variety (as opposed to 100% cotton, hemp, linen or even wool).
Either way…
Hatzlochoh Rabboh
send a white one to every shliach , best advertising ever..
How about an undershirt and wool Tallis Kattan with the same moisture-wicking qualities?
Yes we definitely sell. Many of the products are sold out but will soon be back in stock however there is plenty of product available for purchase. The Abrams Denim, our new jeans, start shipping next week The company will do $3 million + in sales for 2014. Thanks for your interest!
-Mizzen + Main PR Team
Wow great set of investors. However their website is a bit confusing? Do they actually sell or are still crowd-sourcing their shirts?