Bonobos

So two of my friends from business school recently started a men’s pants company and I am in love. They started selling these pants while at Stanford and they became the pants to buy — one guy even had all his groomsmen wear them (it was a casual wedding, but cute nonetheless).

These pants do:
• Make boy’s/men’s butts look really, really cute (think the guy equivalent of True Religion jeans)
• Have the perfect combination of real world and edge. They have really fun linings/ inner pockets combined with beautiful, very wearable fabrics (from khakis to twills to cords to wool)
• Allow preppier types to move away from their (pleated) khakis into styles that look hot on them without freaking them out
• Allow more adventurous types to buy the wilder colors, express their individuality, and look hot without freaking everyone else out
• Allow men to own something that other men will covet — most styles are made on a limited basis so when they’re gone, they’re gone
• Come with a 100% return policy, even years later
• Come with heart (from the website): “If you (belong to) any…profession where you’ve chosen to serve rather than to earn as a first priority, then you may qualify for a Bonobos ‘sponsored athlete’ discount… Essentially, we’d like to make our products a bit more affordable for people that have consciously chosen a career that is less lucrative. All you need to do…is to write us a short letter. We aim to accept all applications, and we try to respond within 24 hours.”

These pants do not:
• Cost an arm and a leg. 0 overhead costs = cheaper pants.
• Only look good on men built ‘heroin chic’ (read: uber-skinny). They are actually designed for men with normal and/or athletic bodies. I’ve seen them look good on lots of types.

So check out the Bonobos website — buy a pair or two for yourselves or the men in your lives, try them on, keep or return them. In fact, I just bought a pair of Black Swans for Scott as well as my dad!

- Jenny Heller

Ouch! I just touched one of the few remaining Series A pants, and I won’t be able to play pizzicato on my fiddle for a week. That’s how hot these things are. They are going like aspirin in a Dublin apothecary on March 18th. Like fruit-flavored malt-ternatives the day before Prom. Like conversion vans in northeast Ohio pretty much any time of the year. Series A, we hardly even got to know you, that’s how quickly you’ve sold. Our only hope as you launch out across this great land is that you make people happy and help improve their lives, like Johnny Appleseed, or Michael Landon and Victor French in these outtakes from “Highway to Heaven.”

The question is as old as time itself. Which came first – the ape or the trouser? The honest answer is, nobody knows. But there is an ineffable kinship between Bonobos pants and the apes that share our name. Throw on a pair, and one can’t help but feel a strong yet playful burst of simian energy climbing up the legs. After all, the bonobo ape shares 98% of our DNA, and, according to a quote used in this interesting National Geographic Adventure article, they are characterized as “equal parts dolphin, Dalai Lama, and Warren Beatty.” Frankly, I have no idea what that means, but I like the sound of it. Let’s learn about our ape brethren and become familiar with their customs. Let’s make peace with them and their jungle kingdom. And if you see a bonobo at the bar, looking glum, crying a little in his gin gimlet, talk to him. Cheer him up. Compliment him on the perfect fit of his Whistlers or F. Scotts. They love that.

Dear Bonobos:

As a husky, formerly very athletic father of five (vintage 10 to 21 years), and with a very attractive and fashion forward wife, I have asked the impossible of pants: to be comfortable and durable (for me) and fashionable (for her, so as not to embarrass the missus at her fashion related fundraising events). I usually hit the Washington, DC default button for high style which is jeans and a blue blazer, but my introduction to the Bonobos portfolio has broadened my fashion horizons considerably since they first rocked my world this past Summer in Nantucket.

Case in point, we were in need of a vacation from a vacation to recover from an ill-advised family trip to Disney World over Christmas and New Year’s (24-7 Disney Hell ensued as I didn’t get the memo that the whole world would be there!). The missus and I decided an emergency parental recovery program was in order and we took off for 5 days to the Caribbean. I packed only the Mint Juleps and they carried me from beach and fishing to bars, restaurants, and of course, Da Conch Shack. The Mints held up splendidly. Comments from both sexes were very favorable, except for one Brit who was initially more concerned about catching fish than the people partying around him. After a heartfelt apology concerning the fish-nanary, our new friend remarked: “Where did you get those pants?”

World Peace will be achieved, one Bonobos pant leg at a time. Upon arrival back to DC, I was treated to a pair of Black Swans in the mail from the missus. All is well at home and I thank Bonobos for the assist.

-Rich Amons

Lovely photograph courtesy of Mary Amons

The world today is a global network. Or international community. Or something about an information super village. I don’t know. But school children in Ghana are talking with astronauts via satellite link, transpacific internet romances are blossoming like cherry blossoms in Kyoto, and Bonobos is going global. Yeehaw! we shout with our typical south-midland American drawl, just before firing our six-shooters in the air. That’s right – honored guests from all over the globe are kind enough to visit our website and learn about our pants. We could not be more excited, as we do deliver internationally. One thing has caught our eye, however, when browsing the country log of our website. While many a cyber-tourist from Western Europe has graced the Bonobos homepage, we have not been getting the same traffic from Eastern Europe. What gives? While we have considered everything from our broken Cyrillic keyboard to recent NATO developments, we can reach only one conclusion regarding what hinders our Eastern Bloc brethren – an iron curtain of pants. There is some barrier, tangible or intangible, cutting the East from the West when it comes to trousers. So we beg of you, tear down this pant-wall! Pole, Finn, and Hungaryman alike, do not fear our trouser-loving ways! Did the Cossack not invent breeches for those long days on horseback? Did woolen leggings not sheath your brave soldiers in the Great Patriotic War? Did Lenin not look dashing in a pair of mid-weight stretch corduroy? Yes! So please come on in. The weather is great over here. We’d love to sell you some pants. Yeehaw!

Google Analytics map indicating from whence our website traffic hails.

1) I usually dress like a man trying to go unnoticed, but wearing my Bonobos around has actually fooled a few people into thinking I was hip. Folks are digging the new idea that pants don’t have to fit like crap. The Capertons are the perfect pant to wear to Fenway, normally guys just wear jeans with their Red Sox jerseys but these things are genius.

2) I grew up on Dunkin Donuts, and I don’t want to abandon my roots, even if I may appear a bit “husky” at times. The great thing about my Midnight Blues is nobody has to know about my lacking self-control. They’re so slimming; for all my fiancée knows, I’ve been working out like a fiend and showing discipline at the dinner table.

Okay, my denims are having a tough time adjusting to their new neighbor. But hey, that’s tough because there are some new pants hanging around who are making those jeans nervous for their lack of substance and style. I told them that I would not be replacing them but that “the organization is going in a different direction.” I did not have the heart to tell them that they may not be seeing much playing time. This season, or next.

I am going to need more closet space now. I actually bought two pairs of Black Swans, nervous one might get hit by low-flying sea gull shrapnel at the beach or end up in that place where lost socks go.

First time I slipped on the Bonobos it was like form met substance and style in a secret rendezvous. You know, like a place I had always known existed but had never been? Putting on a pair of F. Scotts, I found myself dancing inside about the fit and the color. Orange. Yep, the orange F. Scotts are as amazing as the sun kissed fruit. These pants are all class and their fit may have you writing a Bonobosgram. I did.

Back in the 1920’s gentlemen were going places. Some fast and some slow. Whether you tried to Gatsby with your last and first dollar or write a great novel, whatever you wore had an understated style and it was made with substance. Come the end of the day you may have put on your Bonobos (if they had only been around) and sat down with F. Scott himself for a few short glasses of aged Inspiration. Your pants fit you right where they were supposed to and they knew it. Your body knew it too. No one was spending millions telling you what you already knew.

Substance is real; it is tangible and not ethereal (like the prices of some of the fancy labels in my closet). Some of us cannot fly to Milan this weekend to shop and that’s okay. We just need to get our shoes cobbled right. These pants need no introduction and they always work (while you play) or share the spotlight that seems to be flooding the room.

Finally some folks have listened to the Muse (and Men) and have created a line of pants that not only looks amazing but also works. Thank you gentlemen. I only suggest that they add a cautionary label: “WARNING: these pants will become your go-to pants.”

When I put them on, I was looking to go some place else already. Know that impatient but so excited feeling? Like, when is the next flight to Caracas so I can get back to that tiny café? Or let me get out of Boston for the day and slip “down to the Cape” and walk on the tiny strip of quiet beach in Wellfleet.

I am not sure when denim jeans became sport utility pants. These Bonobos are lightweight, but they are not lightweights. They are workhorses that are eager to be saddled up for a gallop or simply walked.

Look around and you will see which folks are wearing and living by choice. Lemmings do their thing but would not if they wore Bonobos.

Okay. I am now done. And my new Bonobos are just part of a beginning. We are grown ups wearing grown up clothing so let’s stop looking for a happy ending and remember the importance of a great many beginnings.

Life is more than segments of five minutes of joy.

These guys have gotten it right.

It’s up to you now. Take it one leg at a time.

At the end of a hard day of welding steel girders, harvesting soy beans, and cow-punching at the stockyard, American men like nothing more than to kick off their crusty work boots, crack open a cold one, and dive right into the chronicle of post-modern masculinity known as Men’s Vogue. Between the perfume samples and Windsor knots, whits of practical fashion lurk. Bonobos was fortunate enough to be featured in Men’s Vogue recently, so check it out. It’s an honor to get some national attention from a legit magazine, and pretty neat to bask alongside movie stars, models, and others more symmetrical than us humble pantmongers will ever be.

“I don’t know. I think I’m up for a big promotion soon, but I’m just not sure I have what it takes.”

“What do you mean? Your Power Point presentations are impeccable.”

“I know. Remember when I made the Adding Value Integration Pyramid spin off the page, and old man Baxter nearly fell out of his chair?”

“Ha! I sure do.”

“No, it isn’t that. It’s my pants.”

“What’s wrong with your pants?”

“Well, I’ve been here at Baxter Bindle & Klinefelter for almost five years, but I’ve always shown up in the same drab, unappealing trousers. I haven’t done anything to truly stand out in the pants department. Do you know what Sally in accounting calls me?”

“What?”

“Pantosaurus Sux.”

“Ouch. So what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm. Have you ever tried Bonobos?”

“I thought about it once in Tijuana, but I was worried my wife might find out . . .”

“No, the pants. Bonobos makes great-fitting men’s trousers.”

“Oh yeah. But aren’t they more casual?”

“Are you #$@&*% crazy? They’re coming out with a whole new line of fantastic wool dress pants in just a few weeks. They’re perfect for the office.”

“Really? Where can I get Bonobos?”

“Go to Bonobospants.com. Or try Tijuana!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Will you two get back to work?!?!?”

“Sorry, Mr. Baxter.”

“Sorry, Mr. Baxter.”

You’ve been hitting the Bowflex hard. You’ve been doing push-ups, mountain-climbers, and deep-knee-bends all winter to prepare for your big spring unveiling. You know what we’re talking about. Don’t blush. Those two beveled sleeve cougars you call arms. You could rip a phone book in half with those things. Sly Stallone would never get his son or his truck back if you had your say. You’ve done for the tricep what Frank Lloyd Wright did for architecture – made it awesome. Now, what better way to pitch your muscular wares than an organic cotton charcoal Bonobos logo t-shirt? Our latest venture above the belt looks great on men and women alike, as proven scientifically in this portrait of our good friend Melissa, and they make terrific gifts. Order one now while the ordering is good. These things are selling like hotcakes. Three-hundred-pound, twenty-rep, three-set hotcakes.