Bonobos

Customer service is a state of mind. Let me explain:

I’ve been a New Yorker for six weeks, exactly as long as I’ve been on the Bonobos team. But it took me over a month to find an apartment (I played “musical couches” in the meantime), so even though I’ve settled into certain very New York behaviors—jaywalking with impunity, etc.—I’m still more or less unpacking. I’m still, more or less, a total newbie.

So, last week, when my dearest friend in the whole world (and a beacon of style in her own right) asked if I would accompany her to La Gioconda at the Metropolitan Opera in 48 hours, my mind began to race faster and louder than the cabs shooting up Sixth Avenue at 8:58 in the morning. Most of my clothes are still sequestered in boxes—I think I’ve only got jeans and my capertons—can I wear Doc Martens to the Met?—of course I can’t, what the hell am I thinking? WHAT AM I GOING WEAR?

Eventually it became clear to me that even if I managed to unpack and organize my closet in time, I would come up short. I’m not in college anymore. Jeans and a hoodie can no longer be my go-to look, the outfit du jour. (Nor should it be for anyone whose daily schedule doesn’t include a round of ultimate frisbee in the quad or a kegger in the dorms.) That awkward, rumpled, I’m-swimming-in-my-button-down-and-this-tie-used-to-be-my-dad’s approach to formal wear would be, thenceforth, unacceptable. It was time to up my game.

I marched into Bonobos HQ the next day (T-minus 36 hours from my debut at the Met), approached Brian Spaly at his desk, and asked him for help. He’s awesome at putting together a look and often helps the team (and our customers) rock their bonobos as hard as they can. “Invest in a few versatile staples,” he advised—like dark brown loafers and a navy blazer. Look for a good value but don’t skimp on quality. For the most part, labels are unimportant. How much you pay for an item takes a backseat to the fit–you will always look good in clothes that fit, regardless of “who” you are wearing, so let that be your guide. For the Met, he told me not to feel obligated to wear a jacket and tie–a clean and elegant dress shirt or sweater would be fine. It may have a black-tie reputation, but the opera is meant, fundamentally, to be entertainment. Comfort’s got to play a role in the theatergoer’s attire (not to mention that La Gioconda is four hours long).

Back at my desk, I considered the gorgeous black trousers Kevin Kelleher had just picked up from our manufacturer in the garment district, twenty blocks north of our HQ. Kevin’s a Production and Operations ninja here at Bonobos, a former D1 footballer, and the trousers in question–jet black, with a slender, graceful drape–were named in part after his favorite adjective: savage.

Two realizations came at once: 1) I was over-thinking this opera outfit. Brian was right: I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, just take a clean look and make sure everything fit well; and 2) I was way overdue in using my employee discount. A look began coming together in my head. I made one of the inaugural purchases of the savage, and later that evening I made two more strategic upgrades to my wardrobe: sleek, side-zip dress boots and a crisp, well-fitted dress shirt white as the leblons. I figured I’d top the outfit off with my pinstripe Banana Republic blazer, take it to the next level with a gray silk pocket square, and off I’d go.

The Bonobos team had other plans.

I arrived at HQ the next day, garment bag slung over my arm and pep in my step, to find a luxurious velvet blazer from Theory draped over my chair. It was Spaly’s, and after a quick try-on to confirm that it fit nicely, he offered to lend it to me for the night. It was all I could do to say thanks without drooling on that gorgeous garment.

As afternoon sidled up to evening, I made the transformation: Jeans into savage. Sneakers into sleek laceless boots. T-shirt into snow-white Calvin Klein poplin. My tired-but-workable blazer into a velvet number that blew it out of the water. The only problem: the ensemble had a new weak link. My pale gray pocket square, while sufficient, lacked that certain Bonobos panache. Kevin Kelleher to the rescue–he snatched a swatch of silk from our cutting table, yellow swirled with ecru and gray. Although previously accustomed to leveling running backs trying to find a breakaway, Kevin deftly folded the silk into a bright crescent that would peek out from the velvety depths of the jacket (Insider’s tip: Look for this same silk to line the g6, a charcoal-hued successor to the g5 reminiscent of the g4!)

I had planned to go without a belt–my bonobos fit like a glove, so I certainly didn’t need one to keep them from falling down, and I liked the idea of showing off our custom-made, Italian nickel hardware. But the guys chimed in, recommending a simple black belt to round out the ensemble. Problem: the only one I had with me was an old, wide thing that lived exclusively in the loops of my favorite broken-in jeans. Our offerings, in Italian tie silk, are beautiful, but not necessarily formal wear. Adam Sidney, indie music connossieur and our Director of Operations, frowned beneath his beard. In a single whip-like motion, he removed his shiny black belt and held it out to me. Best of all, before I could get out a single sentimentalized sentence, Sidney sent me on my way with his own style of encouragement: “Go kick some ass!”

I was dressed more properly and maturely than perhaps ever before in my life, and it changed my outlook on the evening. I noticed a new and exciting strength in my stride and comfort in my conversation. Being thoughtfully dressed, I realized, isn’t about looking fly to stroke your ego. It’s about feeling confident and at ease, freeing you to be attentive to the experiences and individuals that shape your daily (and nightly) experience. In a way (and here I go again, sentimentalizing), working in fashion means we’re in the business of affecting human dignity, and that is a responsibility we cannot take lightly. Which brings me back, finally, to customer service.

As I’ve ruminated on that night at the opera, I’ve concluded that the generosity and enthusiasm I experienced from the whole team would be unlikely to exist for me if I worked at a different company. Turns out, when you commit to making customer satisfaction and service your number one priority, you weave into the fabric of your business model an unequivocal tendency for empathy and helpfulness–and that, for its ability to transcend the buyer/seller dynamic, is something special.

Whether you’re a potential first-time customer or our biggest spender, know that we approach your customer service needs with the mindset that it’s our job to worry about you looking good, not yours. We want you to don your bonobos and venture onward, in pursuit and enjoyment of all the world has to offer.

After all the fun of our previous competitions (name the navy shorts, describe the dark and stormys, and name the stone twills), we’ve decided to lay down another challenge to our awesomely creative customers (and would-be customers alike): name one of our newest styles, to be launched later this week: a new dress trouser in jet-black. Please make your submission as a comment on this post, and please only submit once. Give it some thought, and give it your one best shot.

We were way too helpful in describing the dark and stormys, so here’s all you’ve got to work with this time: the new trousers are black, with a herringbone weave. They are lined in the same black and red tiger-stripe silk as the tiger sharks. Like the mccains, there is no contrasting back-pocket liner. Oh, and the material? I’ve saved the best detail for last: It’s 100% cashmere. We’re going to put them at $275, but rest assured they’d be about three times that at Barney’s or Bloomingdale’s.

To win, you don’t have to submit a name and a description, but know that it can’t hurt your chances (and that after the extreme lengths of writerly restraint I just went through to bring you the above paragraph in simple, declarative sentences, I, for one, look forward to seeing these new and groundbreaking bonobos get a world-class wordsmithing from one of you out there!).

Wondering if it’s worth a shot? Marcus Coe doesn’t appear to have any regrets as he sports his gratis dark and stormys and sips their namesake cocktail.

That’s right, to the winner goes a pair of these pants on the house–our priciest giveaway to date.

Gents, consider the ante upped. Bring your A game.

The fearless and spirited obamas are outselling the stylish but prim mccains by a factor of nearly two-to-one! After a competitive first few days, the obamas took a strong lead and never looked back.

Haven’t yet decided which pair is for you? Go with your gut, but feel free to lean toward the trouser-right to bolster the mccains’ showing–pretty soon you won’t have a choice, since our stock of limited-run obamas is falling faster than the Dow, and like our Congress, Bonobos is flipping a thumbs-down to a bailout. When they’re gone, they’re gone for good.

(Have I forgotten to mention that our flagship navies are soon to be reincarnated once again, in the same super-soft organic twill as the obamas and mccains, but with a bright floral lining? How Alberto Gonzales of me.)

No recount, not this time. No confounded Floridians or cross-eyed chad-counters or Supreme Court justices of conflicted interest who ultimately green-light a panty raid at the electoral college. In the closely watched and hotly debated 2008 trouser race, we’ve just recorded a landslide the likes of which hasn’t occurred in three generations, since Warren G. Harding and the soon-to-be-known-as “Silent Cal” Coolidge laid an electoral smack-down on the democratic Cox-Roosevelt ticket in 1920. (Whatever happened to that FDR kid, anyway?)

My fellow Americans,

From the great continuum of human feuds (Capulets vs. Montagues, Whigs vs. Tories, Lindsay vs. Paris) emerges an historic slug-fest: Bam vs. Mac. Bonobos is proud to enter the fray.

In the late eighteenth century the working class of France, with fire in their eyes, gumption in their blood, and dirt under their fingernails, began a stirring that would eventually deliver the nation from monarchism to democracy. The aristocrats—in their fashionable, frilly silk breeches—looked down upon these free thinkers and their full-length, utilitarian trousers. They mockingly dubbed the revolutionaries sans-culottes, or “without knee-breeches.” In the end, all the dandily appointed silk in the world couldn’t halt the guillotine’s dispassionate dispatchment.

Which is to say: the launch of our newest trousers, the obamas and the mccains, is not the first time politics has crossed paths with pants.

We set out to craft a worthy successor to our awesome midnight blues—a John Quincy Adams of trousers, if you will. We acquired super-soft cotton twill from our favorite mill in Belgium (one of the finest in the world), and the fabric’s deep, presidential navy spoke to us.

Channeling Republican candidate John McCain’s unshakeable individualism, our designer, Brian Spaly—triathlete, heartthrob, and nautical accessories guru—lined one batch of these beautiful twills with an indigo pinstripe (the same fabric we use on the outside of our super soakers). There is no contrast stitching on the belt loops of the mccains, and no flashy fabric in the back pockets. It’s the most conservative trouser we could bring ourselves to construct, but it’s still a pair of bonobos, through and through, made with care and pride right here in New York City.

But what of democrat Barack Obama? He is charismatic and distinctive, yet his cynosure does not disabuse us of the faith we have in our own greatness. He dwarfs doubt, heightens hope. Lined in a daring mosaic of blue, brown, and orange, the obamas strive to accomplish the same—to be a beacon of encouragement, a leader by example.

(Don’t worry if your trouser preference doesn’t coincide with your vote. It doesn’t make you a flip-flopper. We advise taking a bipartisan approach and ordering both.)

The battle lines are drawn deep. The pundits are sharpening their hyperbole, Joe Biden is cracking his knuckles, Sarah Palin is checking her makeup, and Bonobos has made some really gorgeous pants. Which pair will serve as executive trouser? That’s for you to determine.

By the way–we don’t think pants will play that significant a role in shaping the next four to eight years of this nation’s future, but it doesn’t escape us that Abraham Lincoln wore a Brooks Brothers suit to Ford’s Theatre….

When you’ve got a good thing going, why stop there? (Case in point: the snapdragons 1 and snapdragons 2… not to mention our recent revival of the mint juleps). We’ll be in downtown Boston for a trunk show this weekend, so we decided to swing by Harvard Business School and show the gentlemen scholars there a few of our top-tier trousers.

We’ll be in the private room of the Grille Spangler on Sunday from 1-6 pm with a ton of inventory in tow for new customers to see and feel in person, ask questions about, try on, and potentially walk away with. Interested? Shoot an e-mail to  ninjas at bonobos.com and let us know.

Not a Harvardite? You’re not out of luck.

If anyone’s got his finger on the pulse of what’s new and awesome in trousers, it’s a tailor. We were thrilled to hear this anecdote from one of our most stellar customers, Grady Snyder in Boston:

…stopped by my tailor’s shop [Bostonian Tailoring] last week. Richard was on the phone when I walked in, but he waved me over to his storage room. In his rack of to-do clothes, he pulled out four hangers, holding: touchstones, dark and stormys, shoguns, and capertons. Got off the phone and in his thick Armenian accent said, “My friend, your pants–they are the new hit in Boston!”

It’s not all that surprising that the trouser revolution is taking root in Boston, given that city’s rich history of telling the status quo to buzz off, we’ve got a better thing brewing, and it ain’t just a shipload of tea in the harbor.

In fact, while Bonobos is in town this weekend at the Nine Zero Hotel, we may have to orchestrate a ninja mission, something of an homage to the revolutionaries who’ve come before us. Crates of poorly-fitting, mass-produced, and heinously marked-up khakis bobbing helplessly in the icy harbor… the very thought of it makes me want to put on a Sox cap, crack open a Sam Adams, and curl up with Johnny Tremain.

Coming out of retirement: so hot right now.

At the end of last season Brett Favre bade his beloved game in Green Bay farewell–supposedly for good. But now he spends Sundays aiming his cannon-arm at Laveranues Coles and Jerricho Cotchery of the New York Jets.

Activist and super-athlete Lance Armstrong bowed out of professional cycling three years ago after changing the sport forever. Turns out he was only catching his breath; he announced last week that he’s training to tackle the tour again in 2009.

Which brings us to the mint juleps, our beloved lightweight cords in soft green. They haven’t been available since April and are back by popular demand! Our juleps may not be able to fire a pigskin missile like Brett or inspire the world like Lance, but with our signature fit and a gentle stretch, these guys are perfect for any feat of urban athleticism. Paired with a white Oxford and navy blazer, the juleps take business casual into stunning new territory. Or dress ‘em down, with a t-shirt and sandals. Like their namesake cocktail, our mint juleps fit in perfectly anywhere class and comfort commingle.

Even though most of our customer feedback looks more like Christopher Thornton’s, we do encounter our fair share of skeptics–which, frankly, we relish. We make trousers for men of discernment, and at any time we’re happy to answer (in detail) the question, “No, seriously. What’s so great about your pants?”

Sometimes, though, we receive inquiries that bypass skepticism and go straight to naysaying:

We’ll give it to this guy; he’s got cojones. He’s got strong feelings and he voices them–strongly. We respect that. We responded with a pretty detailed overview of why our pants are priced the way they are, and we think it’s important information for naysayers and believers alike to be aware of. Dave Eisenberg, a warrior poet and our Chief of Staff, answered:

   Just got your e-mail forwarded to me from our PR department and I wanted to address your points right away.

   I wrote a blog post on why our shorts are priced where they are here, which goes into our pricing in a lot more depth. I just poked around on Brooks Brothers’ site and found no fewer than 7 pairs priced at $250 a pop, so I have even more confidence that we’re doing the right thing. The major cost drivers in our products are the following features:

   1. Our pants are made in New York City. They are hand-sewn: We have a curved waistband that requires a unique sewing procedure that we would have a lot of difficulty outsourcing to a machine-based production facility in China (where Brooks Brothers does a good deal of its manufacturing).

   2. Our fabric is of a much higher quality than the stuff on their [Brooks Brothers’] basic pants (and certainly on anything in a major mass market retailer). We import our wool and cashmere from Italy and Belgium and our corduroy from Spain. The silk that lines our wool pants is made in Italy and bought here in America.

   The proper comparable for our $190 wool pairs is closer to this pair from Brooks Brothers. It retails for $1500 and is sold on their site for $525! That is drastically more expensive than anything we offer. They have a ton of pants in this price range, and all of their “Black Fleece” collection (this is where they use European fabrics) is more expensive than our stuff. It’s impossible for them not to be; they have to pay for fancy models, advertising, and other costs that we hate as former retail consumers.

   When you buy from a Brooks Brothers (or similar) you are paying for a ton of stuff that we don’t do. We have our employees and customers model our pants. We have never paid for glossy advertisements in magazine or on billboards. We don’t go to runway shows and we do all of our web development in-house. In short, all you pay for when you buy from Bonobos is our fabric, American labor, and customer service. No middleman, no store overhead, no department store staff to hassle you while you’re trying to buy, etc. We think it’s a better, fairer value proposition to our customers, so we’re going to stick with it.

   We believe in our philosophy. Not everyone can afford bonobos. Our worldview is driven by the fact that we don’t believe those who pursue the most lucrative careers should necessarily get to enjoy all of the spoils. So we make our pants a lot more affordable to people who choose careers where they help others on a daily basis. Policemen, firefighters, teachers, servicemen—these are just a few professions that have members in our Band of Brothers program. I’m sure that I don’t have to mention that no such policy exists at [insert retailer here].

   Would you be interested in trying a pair? We’ve got a one of a kind return policy, so if you’re not perfectly satisfied, we’ll pay you to send them back to us. That’s our business model and I sincerely hope we can be your “go-to pants store.” We’d love to have you as a customer.

We’ve published the exchange between Dave and the nameless naysayer here not to stroke our egos, but to earnestly invite anyone who thinks we can improve to contact us and let us know what we should do differently. We may not agree with your recommendations, but we will always respond thoroughly and respectfully.

Customer feedback is extremely valuable to us here at Bonobos. Whether critical or complimentary, when you voice your opinions, we take it to heart. Check out what one Bonobos man, Christopher Thornton, wrote to co-founders Andy and Brian about his shoguns and khakis:

Thanks for those enthusiastic words, Christopher! And thanks for rocking your bonobos.

From the evocative (bermuda straits, plymouth rocks, sandcastles) to the literary (meursaults, tessie hutchinsons, sisyphus, ali babas) to the shamelessly pun-tastic (kappa chinos, just whites, if looks could twill) to the utterly perplexing (stone-faced lady killaz), we sorted through well over 100 submissions to name our stretch brushed lightweight organic twill (or SBLOT).

Autumn approaches, and we don’t want to pigeonhole our twills for beach-going. And much as we love literature, Meursault and Tessie Hutchinson are both senselessly executed (bad chi), Sisyphus is condemned to Hades (ouch!), and Ali Baba is a tyrant (uncool). The day may come when a pun so witty, so original, and so perfectly executed appears that we deem it a worthy moniker for one our creations–but it is not today.

And stone-faced lady killaz? Well, Ryan M., you gave us all a much-needed chuckle with your assertion that “despite their stoic exterior, these stone twill trousers will knock the ladies dead when they undo the zipper to reveal the floral party in your pants.”

But in the end, we thought one suggestion triumphed. Congratulations Robin Testa! Thanks to your simple but richly connotative entry, “touchstones,” our stone-colored SBLOTs now have a name that (to paraphrase you) distinguishes them as the measure against which other trousers shall ever be judged. And, of course, you have a free pair on its way to you. Wear ‘em well!

But there’s more to this story. There was one other name, a close second behind touchstones, that we felt properly caught the ethos of our trousers. Matthew Olson gave us the name “sand dollars,” and the description “our twill chinos are… just as soft and supple as the sun-drenched and stone-washed echinoids kind enough to lend their name to these trousers.”

The elegance and concision of those words really struck a chord with us, so we decided that our soon-to-be-launched khaki shorts will now bear the name “sand dollars.” The newly-named sand dollars are the same luxurious stretch twill as our awesomely popular khakis, and are perfect for tee time (or tea time, for that matter) or a stroll along the beach. And there’s a pair en route to you, Matthew.

In the meantime, we’ll do our best to heed to the wise wordplay of Touchstone, Shakespeare’s fool in his romantic comedy As You Like It. The Bard may not having been thinking of pleated fronts and greedy markups when he gave Touchstone the line, “The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly,” but that’s what we think of every time we launch a new pair of bonobos.