Wardrobe Anxiety? Dresser Can Cure It With Weekly House Calls

Ever wonder what some men’s secrets are to dressing well? Think they have innate style? A savvy salesman? That only their dry cleaners know for sure?

Guess no more. For some, the secret is . . . numbers. Little, tiny numbers written in indelible ink inside shirt collars, trouser pockets and the linings of jackets and ties.

The system is courtesy of Alex A. Rodriguez, a cross between a personal valet and a wardrobe consultant. The 28-year-old Rodriguez founded The Best Dressed Co. eight months ago with noble aspirations to coordinate wardrobes for men who are clueless about what to wear. With help from part-time closet organizers and wardrobe consultants, he is responsible for tidying up the looks of KNBC sportscaster Fred Roggin, singer Al Jarreau, City Councilman Richard Alatorre, ABC sportscaster Al Michaels, actor Kevin Dobson and KABC newscaster Harold Greene, who are among some 200 men who have surrendered their closets to him.

Some, however, need more help than others. So for about 10 clients (at $200 a month) Rodriguez makes weekly house calls, pulling outfits for the coming week and organizing them neatly in their closets.

On a recent day Rodriguez, a former sales manager for the Sherman Oaks men’s clothing store Rick Pallack who works out of West Hills, is off to see clients in the San Fernando Valley. Climbing into his navy blue Toyota Supra and blasting the air conditioning, he explains how he has found that “most men hate to shop, they don’t have the time to shop, and they struggle with putting together the right outfit. The biggest mistake men make in terms of putting together a wardrobe are in terms of color and style. Sometimes a man shouldn’t wear a vented garment, or he should be wearing a four-in-hand knot in his tie. For me, it’s the minor details that have major impact.”

New clients get a free initial consultation, to determine their “personality, profession and pocketbook.” Rodriguez sends in a closet organizer to arrange everything before he arrives to note the gaps in the wardrobe. Then he shops for whatever is needed (almost always without the client) and the closet organizer numbers it all.

Next comes what Rodriguez calls the “creative part”: putting together outfits. He chants numbers into a mini Panasonic tape recorder that his secretary will later transcribe into a “portfolio”; bound, typed master lists of every clothing item with its corresponding number, and pages of number-coded outfits. The cost for all this ranges from $300 to $1,500, depending on the size of the existing wardrobe and the needed additions.

Rodriguez drives to the Bell Canyon home of insurance company owner Jack Riggio, who doesn’t use the number system “because even if he had it he wouldn’t use it ‘cause he’s that busy.”

Riggio’s wife, Nancy, opens the door and Rodriguez bounds in, doffs his jacket (textured black with flecks of raspberry and teal) and gets to work, pulling out jackets, ties, shirts and pants for the coming week, and arranging them on the bed, all the while softly talking to himself. “ Thaaaat’s the one,” he says, exchanging one tie for another. When all outfits are completed, he reads them off into a tape recorder so he won’t duplicate anything the following week.

“Before I come here, I talk to his assistant and find out what his schedule is going to be, who he’s meeting,” Rodriguez explains, “so I know which days are going to be casual or dressy.” If a client wants to wear a Tuesday outfit on Wednesday, he had better call Rodriguez first. “I’ll say, ‘let me check your agenda.’ And sometimes I’ll say no, the Wednesday outfit is too flashy.”

Hopping in the Toyota, he heads to the Encino home of real estate mogul Mike Glickman to pick out the following week’s outfits, plus a suit to wear to a funeral, and deliver Glickman’s outfit for his 10th-year high school reunion.

Rodriguez, who grew up poor and vowed that he’d eventually have enough clothes so that he’d never have to duplicate an outfit, clearly loves his work. But he’s had his moments of doubt.

“One client called me one day and said, ‘Alex, I want to wear white shorts today and you didn’t tell me what goes with white shorts!’ I said, ‘Put on a polo shirt and get out of the house.’ Then I hung up the phone and got really scared.”