#298 l Ben Lawler; Suits, Finding Your Style, and the Future of Fashion

About this episode

Ben Lawler, a custom clothier with Tom James Company in St. Louis, gives Vance a deep, practical education in men's fashion: the fabric/construction distinction that separates a $100 suit from a $10,000 one (super numbers/micron counts, bespoke hand-tailoring at Oxford, an American manufacturer that has dressed presidents and Yankees legends), the anatomy of a dress shirt (collar stays, cuffs, monograms, buttons), and dry-cleaning mechanics most people never think about. The conversation moves into the psychology and economics of the tailoring business — mirroring your audience, the "process vs. event" sales approach, an 85% client retention rate built on trust and relationship rather than product alone, and a nonprofit ("Suit Project") that recycles donated suits to underprivileged men. Lawler and Vance also trace larger cultural threads: COVID's whiplash from casual dressing to a formal-dress rebound, the decline of legacy retailers like Brooks Brothers, and fashion as a signaling system (the "peacock" versus the "blend in" personality types). The episode closes with an unrelated but memorable tangent on the physics of color — how paint-mixing rules (subtractive color) differ entirely from light-mixing rules (additive color, three lasers converging into white light) — before returning to sock-and-trouser matching etiquette.

“Bespoke means 100% hand tailored, never touches a machine, right? So you're gonna pay for that craftsmanship... Oxford is the last handmade garment here in the United States. These take 12 to 16 weeks to make.”

“It's kinda like whenever you're picking out a car, you wanna have the right wheels to go with it... you can spend three, four, or five, six hundred bucks on a belt. Is it that much nicer than Alan Edmonds? Not necessarily. A lot of times you just pay for the name.”

“People want consistency at the end of the day, but they also want a relationship... people want to work with individuals that they know, people that they like, but also people that they trust. So that's why we run typically an 85% client retention rate.”

Key moments

• The fabric/construction framework for suit quality — "super 100s" vs. "super 240s" fiber grades, and Oxford's bespoke 12-16 week hand-tailoring process for clients including US presidents and MLB legends.
• Dress shirt anatomy deep dive — collar stays, French cuffs, monogram "signature" stitching, and why non-iron shirts (banned from US production due to a carcinogen in the polymer coating) trade durability for convenience.
• The business model behind mobile tailoring — quarterly client visits, the "process vs. event" spending framework, and the Suit Project nonprofit that redistributes donated suits.
• COVID's effect on formal wear — a dip into "waist-up dressing" during lockdown followed by a record sales year as offices returned to in-person formality.
• Discussion of trust as the actual product being sold — comparing suit sales to buying a diamond or gemstone, where the buyer can't independently verify quality and must rely on the seller's integrity.
• Custom luxury features — screen-printed linings, personalized pinstripes (including 24-karat gold thread for pro athletes), and psychological framing for high-ticket purchases.
• Tangent on color physics — subtractive (paint) vs. additive (light) color mixing, ending in a practical sock-matching rule (match hosiery to trousers, not shoes).

Notable quotes

“Bespoke means 100% hand tailored, never touches a machine... Oxford is the last handmade garment here in the United States.”

“You can spend three, four, or five, six hundred bucks on a belt. Is it that much nicer? Not necessarily. A lot of times you just pay for the name.”

“People want consistency, but they also want a relationship... that's why we run an 85% client retention rate.”

“You get white light... just because you understand paint colors does not necessarily transfer to an understanding of light.”