Ostrove started working at Paul Stuart on weekends and school holidays as a boy. It’s a narrative more commonly found in Italian luxury companies than Anglo-Saxon ones—down to the requisite experience outside the family business working for other retail firms before returning to the fold.
As part of his personal odyssey, Michael did a rotation in every department at the New York flagship, eventually relocating to Chicago to open their second location in the “City With Big Shoulders”, finally returning to New York and assuming the rudder of the company. He was named President and CEO in 2009.
I met Michael for the first time back in January. The first question, inevitably, would be about family. Provenance and integrity are both highly desirable (and,at the moment, fashionable).
So I had to ask:
How do you embrace change at an organization that bears so many of your family’s indelible fingerprints?
There’s a desire to honor the past, a drive to persevere in the present and an objective to prosper in the future. They’re abstract ideas, but you do feel their influence in day-to-day decisions, in how we push the company forward.
How have you seen the Paul Stuart customer change during your 30 years
at the company?
There’s certainly been an evolution in both our product and in our customer—we develop with the times, with incremental changes in style—but because our philosophy on menswear and our place in the field has been so consistent, the customer who comes to us has been quite consistent as well. We’re a businessman’s destination, a serious store for people who take their dress seriously—not only at work but after hours and on weekends as well.
How does the Phineas Cole line fit into that evolution?
Phineas is for us as a laboratory—a place where we can push the envelope. We find that it’s an effective way to learn things about what we can do, how far we can stretch the basic tenets of our Anglo-American point-of-view. A little more dashing, a little more rakish, but, as always, it really depends on what best suits our customer. Interestingly enough, a fortunate by-product is that, almost every season, new design elements inform the main line and help us to push Phineas that much further.
Could you give some examples?
Fit has been the biggest differential, Phineas boasts a much trimmer fit. And details like peak lapels, hacking pockets, ticket pockets, flaps on breast pockets, bias cuts, dramatically unconventional fabric choices—all the little things that make up the whole DNA of the garment itself. The Phineas sensibility is instantly recognizable, but, also I think, still entirely identifiable as something found only at Paul Stuart.
Which line do you tend to wear yourself?
I wear both, and regularly mix the two together. In fact, that is probably a good example of the two sides represented by the two lines—a more adventurous accessory from one might be balanced by a classic piece of tailoring from the other, or vice-versa.
How would you characterize how you dress in general?
In line with our philosophy at Paul Stuart, which is: Understated sophistication and elegance with touches of whimsy or flair. Particularly color—I like to wear color, especially purple. And I really only feel properly dressed in a jacket. My uniform tends to consist of suits to the office and sports jackets on the weekend.
Strong color is often associated with being a ‘dandy’. How comfortable are you with the term, and should it be associated with Paul Stuart collections?
I think the important point is about individual interpretation. We never want to dictate to customers, to tell them to dress by numbers. It’s our mission to enable men to express themselves, and look good while doing it.
Key too, is a customer being faithful to themselves. Paul Stuart is for confident, sophisticated, successful men and women, and if they are comfortable pushing the boundaries a bit more, good for them. They can easily make use of our accessories, our sense of color, our refined classics, to become a bit more of a ‘dandy’. It’s about suiting the individual and their personal sense of style.
You’ve opened a new store in Washington, DC. Do you expect a different type of customer in the Capital?
We are very excited about what’s happening at CityCenter. There’s certainly a lot of familiarity with Paul Stuart in DC, and it’s a suit-wearing community so our establishing a store there fits very well. We are stocking by carefully evaluating what we hear from our existing customer—and there are really quite a few—who presently live and work in the Capital. We’re also obviously expecting to find—and be found by—an entirely new customer who has yet to discover the exclusive nature of what we do—and how it suits his lifestyle. As regards the store itself, it’s a large space, much bigger than either of the Chicago stores, so there’s plenty of room to show off the full range. I’ve wanted to open a store in the District for a while, the CityCenter project could not have come along at a more advantageous time. We are very confident that our very Paul Stuart-centric ethos will be well received there.
What does the future hold for the brand?
The next logical steps include a complete renovation to our flagship store in Manhattan. It will reflect many of the design elements and much of the technology that we are establishing in the new store. And, although it would be premature for me to announce anything specific as yet, there is certainly additional expansion within the U.S. and international markets in our future. Let’s say we are keeping an eagle eye out for the right locations in other cities. We want to find just the right locations for Paul Stuart, and offer any and all our clientele the very highest level of quality and service to be found anywhere in the world. It is what is expected of Paul Stuart. That is both our philosophy and our legacy. And has been for more than 77 years…
Simon Crompton is an English journalist and author with a passion for classic men’s elegance. He is the founder of Permanent Style (permanentstyle.co.uk) and a regular contributor to The Rake and the Financial Times.
- See more at: https://www.paulstuart.com/blog/only-at-paul-stuart-a-lifetime-in-style#sthash.abe62DVm.dpuf
