Hey, Big Fellas
At 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds, Todd Vradenburg has some big holiday designs in mind. And in the jolly old Saint Nick of time, he just might get his tall order. For the first time, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Nautica are offering menswear collections specifically designed for big and tall men.
“Just, no velour jogging suits, please!” said Vradenburg, 32, executive director of the Will Rogers Institute in East Los Angeles.
Not to worry, big guy. These threads are as hip and stylish as anything a 32-inch waisted Mr. GQ would strut in.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clothes (ho, ho, ho) for guys built like refrigerators who are fed up with being left out in the cold--fashionably speaking, that is.
Major labels such as Lauren, Hilfiger and Nautica--known as the “Big 3” among the movers and shakers in the big-and-tall industry--are helping to bring style to a sizable market.
After all, big and tall men account for 15% of the American male population. That’s roughly 16 million men with waists measuring 42 to 66 inches who wear size 1X to 6X. Already they spend about $5.6 billion a year for clothes.
And this market is growing at a rate of 11% per year as more retailers and designers get
into the business, according to Peter Simon, vice president of NPD Projections, a marketing and research firm in Long Island, N.Y.
Clothiers hope to duplicate the success of the plus-size women’s industry. It’s all part “of a natural evolution for the big-and-tall market,” Simon said.
“This isn’t your father’s big-and-tall clothing business anymore,” explained David Weiss, president of the Big & Tall Buyers Assn. of America (BATBAA) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The group has 128 members who own and operate 250 big-and-tall men’s stores nationwide and attend the Big & Tall Mens Apparel Needs (BATMAN) semiannual trade shows.
“Big and tall men follow fashion trends, too,” said Weiss, who has been with the buyers’ group for 20 years and has operated his own store where sizes range from 42 portly to 72 portly extra long--for 35 years.
Until Now, Big Men Denied Hip Fashion
“There is a greater demand for brand names because the bigger, taller guy out there hasn’t had the Polo and Nautica lines to buy before. He hasn’t had that kind of cutting-edge fashion” unless he could afford to have it tailor-made, he said.
Weiss recalls when customers 30 years ago had only black, navy and gray to choose from in limited styles of trousers and coats.
“When we got green in the store, big and tall guys went crazy for it. These days, the saying is, ‘Whatever is No. 1 in regular sizes is No. 1 in big and tall,” he said, adding that a big-and-tall menswear manufacturer named Big Bubba “makes everything in sizes up to 10X and a size 74X in a suit.”
For now, the large-size versions of Lauren, Hilfiger and Nautica-- currently exclusive to Repp Premier Big & Tall stores across the country--are not alone in their portly sized fashion-forward direction.
Urbanwear designers including Karl Kani, Fubu, Pelle Pelle and Sean Jean are jumping on the big-guy bandwagon with their inner-city hip-hop creations for guys who shop at specialty stores such as Rochester Big & Tall, a chain made famous by celebrities such as Luciano Pavarotti and professional athletes like Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, who shop there.
“Historically, big-and-tall customers were provided with commodity items at a low price essentially to appease them,” explained Simon of the NPD research firm. “They didn’t have much choice in clothes, and the choices were not comparable in terms of the quality for the standard-sized man.
“These days, my little mantra to retailers is ‘Don’t sell muu-muu type clothing to big men.’ They want to wear the same stuff as anyone else out there, the same quality.”
The trend toward upscale designer garments and the arrival of urbanwear is creating greater interest and more choices for the larger man, according to Jeff Yunis, president and owner of Miami-based Specialty Trade Shows, which has staged 31 BATMAN events since 1982 for manufacturers, exhibitors and buyers.
The next event will be a three-day show in February in Miami with a 20% increase in attendance because of a revived interest in big-and-tall business fueled by big-name designers, Yunis said.
Guess? has shown interest in the market, as have national department stores such as Dillard’s, Yunis said. The clothing company Slates will be a first-timer at the February show.
The market is growing especially among young men 15 to 30 years old who crave hard-to-find hipper clothes, he said. “But the older big and tall man also wants to look sharp, so it just makes sense to have those kinds of clothing options available in stores.”
“These are factors that didn’t exist five, 10 years ago. Today, not every big man wants to wear overalls,” he said.
Stuart Glasser, president and chief executive of J. Baker Inc., parent company of Repp Big & Tall and Casual Male Big & Tall, agrees.
Took a Cue From Plus-Size Industry
As a company in the business for 25 years, Glasser said “we decided to make some major changes,” taking cues from the plus-size women’s industry, which has changed through the years.
About two years ago, Glasser, a former Bloomingdale’s executive, started thinking about bringing in name designers to the 150 Repp stores, which also carries its own house brands, Repp and Grande Central.
He saw a need for providing big and tall men with the modern silhouettes that the average guy is used to wearing and approached the folk at Lauren, Hilfiger and Nautica, who agreed to present fall and winter collections.
“All you have to do is go into a department store and see the Polo Shop, the Hilfiger boutique, the Nautica boutique and so on,” Glasser said, which has since led to the creation of similar boutiques in the Repp stores.
“Why not give those 15% of big-and-tall customers the looks they see in the marketplace that 85% of the guys out there are wearing? Big and tall guys have the right to buy those looks, too.”
Chu, designer, founder and chief executive of New York-based Nautica, concurred. “There’s not much for the big guys out there. The population has grown bigger, and these big guys also need good-looking clothes and merchandise.”
He said he “really wanted to go after the big-and-tall business” and found the collaboration with Repp a good match.
And a challenge when it came to designing a line of sport coats, corduroy trousers and cable-knit sweater vests--among other garments--for the beefier man.
“We’ve been working with the Repp staff to understand the fit of the big and tall man. When you blow up a size, it has to be the right proportion. You can easily upgrade a small pattern to a medium” and so on. “But when you go from an extra large to 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X, you can’t do that” because everything about design is the proportion so that the garment fits well.
Chu predicts that more department stores will go after the big-and-tall market, particularly in the sportswear division, because of the profit potential out there.
Los Angeles-based designer Karl Kani was among the first urbanwear designers who saw the big-and-tall market as a viable one, which is why he started his Big Man line two years ago. The line is similar to his regular men’s collection that includes jeans, sports apparel and suits--but in sizes that reach 70 tall and trousers that go to 64 in the waist.
Since then, others have followed, including PNB Nation, Maurice Malone, Mecca and Paco.
“I had a lot of athletes coming to me, professional wrestlers--I’m talking big guys--who wanted to wear designer labels. So we started making clothes for them,” Kani said.
But, like Chu, it took Kani some time “to nail down the sizes because it’s more than just grading up a pattern. It’s about the waist and height.”
Still, the move into the market has paid off. “About 20% of our business is big and tall men--and it’s growing. The market is wide open.”
And that’s a good sign for big guys like Vradenburg, a self-admitted clotheshorse who said whenever he shops in a department store “there’s usually nothing in there I can fit into except ties and socks. And if there is, the selection is limited.”
“Now, whenever I see a big-and-tall men’s store, I stop in, and I’m blown away by the choices, by the same items that I would see in a normal department store and could never buy. Finally, it’s cool for oversized guys like myself to be part of the mainstream.”
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Shopping Guide
Where to find the items worn by Santas pictured on E1.
The following outfits are from the Repp Premier Big & Tall store at Fashion Square Mall in Sherman Oaks. Other selected Repp stores also carry the garments.
* Surfer Santa Pat Myles makes waves in a Tommy Jeans ensemble by Tommy Hilfiger that includes a red-and-blue-striped polo shirt ($57.99), denim shorts ($56) and a gray fleece zippered sweatshirt ($81.99). The surfboard is from Surfs Up, Inc., a company that creates limited-edition art surfboards for home decoration.
* Casual Friday Santa Peter Beam wears a Ralph Lauren look that includes cotton Hammond trousers with a reverse pleat ($65) and a Polo green zippered cotton jacket ($112.50) over a colorful plaid shirt ($89.50).
* Hef Santa Brian Yan is relaxed in Nautica’s green cotton terry cloth bathrobe ($95) over a red T-shirt ($28).
* GQ Santa Todd Vradenburg is decked out in Nautica by David Chu. His outfit includes a navy blue cotton knit vest ($85) worn over a long-sleeved biege shirt ($80), navy-blue corduroy trousers ($70) and a navy-blue plaid two-button sport coat ($295).
* Sporting Santa Larry Sandoval wears Repp cargo pants ($19.99), and Grande Central’s brown V-neck merino wool sweater ($75) teamed with an olive zippered microfiber jacket ($80).
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Michael Quintanilla can be reached by e-mail at michael.quintanilla@latimes.com.
