12:00 noon-1:00 pm EDT on Zoom
Wednesday,
March 20 , 2024
MENSWEAR:
Where Has All the Fashion Gone?
When it comes to changes in fashion, Menswear has long taken a backseat to Womenswear. Well, now may be Menswear Fashion’s moment in the sun! The Covid pandemic changed the way all of us dressed, men and women alike. Post-Covid, any dress code that existed previously has been tossed aside. Business, business casual, and casual have all taken on new meanings, and all generations from Gen Z to Baby Boomers have their own dress codes. Complicating matters further is the channel shift that has taken place regarding where men shop for clothes.
We welcome three outstanding Menswear Subject Matter Experts: Joseph DeAcetis, Editor in Chief and Creative Style Director of StyleLujo.com; Sid Mashburn, Co-Founder of the specialty store retail chain bearing his name; and Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Co-Founder & President of the digitally native brand Ministry of Supply. Join us as they sort out what’s going on in Menswear and what lies ahead.
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What's fueling growth in the $575+ billion global menswear sector?
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What channels are most important to sales of Menswear? Is there a comeback for men’s specialty stores?
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What trends are leading the charge in Menswear retailing? How important is the new "Dressed up/ Dressed Down" trend vs Traditional Categories?
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Where is the current fashion influence coming from, and what are the validation sources for guys?
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What retailers and brands should we be watching and wearing?
BONUS SESSION
Our webinar will kick off with a short, up-to-the-moment summary of the latest goings-on in retail. Our Subject Matter Expert is Patrick McKeever, President and Founder of The Daily on Retail.
Fees:
RMS Members: $10
Guests: $50*
Date: Wednesday, March 20
Time: 12:00 noon-1:00 pm EDT
Location:
Dail-in instructions will be emailed prior to the event.
* If you're not an RMS member, now is the time to join. Benefits of membership include: reduced rates on webinars, meetings and conferences; complimentary attendance at our Roundtable online discussions; "Top Takeaways"-capsule summaries of most meetings and webinars; Membership Directory for networking purposes; and Face to Face Fridays, a bi-monthly online networking session for members only.
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
Gihan Amarasiriwardena
Co-Founder & President
Ministry of Supply
Ministry of Supply is a retail company innovating materials and design to solve the everyday problems that traditional clothing presents. The company has been carbon neutral since its inception. All of their products are made using sustainable
materials such as water bottles, corn-based polyester fibers, and wood-based fibers from FSC Certified forests that were all tested for durability.
As Ministry of Supply’s President and in-house design expert, Gihan leads the technology and garment development processes. He heads up visits to the factories, leads design in-house, and even puts garments to the extreme test: in 2015 he set the Guinness Book of World Record for fastest half-marathon ran in a suit, and in 2018 he cycled cross country wearing a NASA-inspired polo. Gihan’s dedicated to melding form and function to design clothing that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible. Gihan and his wife Karoline put their latest iteration of suiting to the test and set the men’s and women’s world records for fastest-half marathons in a full suit.
Joseph DeAcetis
Editor in Chief & Creative Style Director
StyleLujo.com
Joseph DeAcetis is an American Fashion Director particularly known for his contributions in menswear. Joseph is the creative style director at Forbes Media. At Forbes, Joseph
produces and styles Forbes magazine cover and fashion editorial pages in which capacity he gained valuable experience in the marketing aspect of the fashion industry. This led to a period of extensive collaboration during which DeAcetis researched the rising Latino American luxury menswear market segmentation. The experience provided DeAcetis with an opportunity and vision to develop an aspirational apparel brand with an architecture aligned to the empowerment of social impact. Extrapolating the undeniable Latino menswear apparel market, DeAcetis founded Potro Inc. Potro is a menswear lifestyle brand logistically and visually structured for the rising Latino American marketplace.
Sid Mashburn
Co-founder
Sid & Ann Mashburn
Sid Mashburn grew up in small-town Mississippi but began his design career in New York in the mid-1980s, as J.Crew’s first men’s designer. His interest in tailoring and vintage clothing
(and love of the hunt) made up for his lack of formal design training, and he designed the brand’s first heritage piece—the Barn Jacket. He was later recruited by Ralph Lauren to join the design team at Polo, and after subsequent stints leading design at Tommy Hilfiger and Lands’ End, it was time to do his own thing.
Sid had always wanted to build a menswear brand. But his dream was as much about the physical space to share it in as the clothing itself. Hospitality, not just design. The company began with a single men’s shop on the West Side of Atlanta in 2007. Since then, they’ve opened five more shops across the US, plus a women’s brand, Ann Mashburn, and an e-commerce site shopmashburn.com
MODERATOR
Joan Volpe
Adjunct Professor, FIT
Until recently, Joan was the Managing Coordinator of the FIT Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and continues at FIT as an Adjunct Professor in Fashion Business Management, Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology, During her tenure as head of Professional Studies.
Joan led the CPS in efforts to provide fast, focused business solutions and training for individuals and companies at each level of the industry including internationally established corporations and trade groups. She oversaw the creation, development, promotion, and management of over 500 short programs annually, as well as a number of Professional Development Certificate programs covering such disciplines as Branding, Omni-Channel Retailing, Image Consulting and Fashion Styling. A veteran of the fashion industry, Joan has had experience on both the retail and wholesale side of the industries served by FIT, including experience in marketing and merchandising apparel, home, and beauty products. Joan serves on the RMS Board of Directors.