Brian Spaly
Founder & Designer
Brian Spaly could never find pants that fit well. There was a hole in the market: high end trousers were outrageously expensive and made for razor thin runway models, and the mass market pants were unflattering and uninspiring. He wondered, "where can a guy like me find great pants that fit well at a fair price?"
Brian became frustrated that he couldn't fit into a lot of fashionable clothing without alterations. A generous girlfriend in Beacon Hill lent Brian a sewing machine one winter, and he began to take matters into his own hands. He designed the trademark Bonobos pattern to solve his own trouser woes: a curved waist band to better accommodate a real guy's body, a slight bootcut to flatter the figure, and less fabric in the thighs so they weren't so baggy and boxy. Ripping seams apart and putting them back together, he gradually developed a better pair of pants.
A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Brian attended Princeton University. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco to join Bain & Company. After a stint at The Bridgespan Group, Bain's nonprofit spin-off, Brian moved on to private equity at Parthenon Capital, working both in Boston and later back in San Francisco. He spent two years doing deals at Parthenon before joining the management team of Accumed, an Austin-based Parthenon portfolio company. So how did this private equity guy become a pants designer?
In 2005, Brian moved from Texas back to California to get an MBA at Stanford GSB, where visions of entrepreneurial success danced in all the students' eyes, and where he met Andy. While many of his classmates plotted to change the world via Web 2.0 or clean technology, Brian worked on his pants project, eventually making some samples and a modest production run. Then a curious thing happened – 90% of the guys who tried on the "Spaly pants" wanted to buy them, often buying multiple pairs. Bonobos was born.
Since then, a company formed around the concept of awesome fitting pants in every style imaginable with no pricey retail markup. Brian and Andy worked together to build a company around the idea during the summer of '07. They were having so much fun that Andy decided to become the full-time CEO and move the company to Manhattan, launching the online store in October. Brian remains focused on product design, striving to pull together an exciting and comprehensive line of men's pants.
When he’s not out searching for fabrics and matching liners, Brian keeps busy fighting gravity and finding ways to stay fit in Manhattan, where he lives dangerously close to Magnolia Bakery in the West Village. MBA finance dorks who know how to design apparel are few and far between, but then again, so are pants that look fantastic but also fit comfortably.