Ba-Bump, Ba-Bump, Ba-Bump

Long before Men’s Wearhouse (MW) was omnipresent, we were outlaws. At least in the minds of the vendor community. We were young, brash, and on occasion, not afraid to fire one up* in a vendor’s office. Back then, the industry was dominated by major department stores such as Macy’s and the Federated Stores group. Most cities had a local men’s-only specialty store, maybe part of a national chain; others, just strong local one-offs. MW was a blip on the radar, only doing business in what was then considered a small market—Houston, Texas.

At Trade Shows, most vendors didn’t want us to be seen in their booths, and would on occasion go so far as to request we turn our badges around, lest a “real” retail customer see the vendor was selling to us clowns.

But as we grew beyond our Houston-centric store base and opened stores on the West Coast, the issue of selling to MW became even more exacerbated for the manufacturers. They could no longer write us off as a local phenom when speaking to the national chains.

Selling to MW had an advantage. Vendors knew they were dealing not only with the same person season after season, but that same person was also a company owner. At the time, the merry-go-round of buyers moving from one company to another was notorious in the industry, and our stability mattered a lot.

I also soon realized what was most important wasn’t the vendor-MW relationship, but the relationship between me (or any other MW person) and the vendor. It wasn’t about product or price; it was about people. It was about integrity and honesty. And how we got to know each other as human beings. Order size was important, but getting to know the vendors as human beings and treating each other with respect was equally important.

This approach worked very well for the company. For me personally? A mixed bag, at best. There were a few instances where knowing the person on the other side of the table too well came with a price.

One of our large suppliers was Oxford Industries, a public company based in Atlanta, Georgia. They made clothing for us in their own factories in the South and also contracted with factories in China, making them among the first in the men’s industry to do so. All the clothing we bought from Oxford was “private label”—code for the fact that Oxford didn’t have licensing rights to a brand, like Giorgio Armani or Hugo Boss.

I had developed a friendship with our Oxford sales rep—Harold—and we came up with a name and logo for our own private label—Oliver Hunt. (Oliver was going to be my daughter Emily’s name, had she been a he. Who knows where the “Hunt” came from.)

Harold and I spent time together, and I often urged him to let the people he reported to at Oxford know they needed to license a brand, because I could soon see the day when MW would use fewer private labels and more “real” labels. I liked him and, more importantly, liked the merchandise they were making for MW—especially out of the China factory. What they were missing was a brand, and what they were risking was growth with MW without it.

Coincidentally, on a trip to New York, I had been speaking with another vendor who was complaining about a brand his company had licensed and bemoaning its cost. The guy had no idea of the potential gold mine he was sitting on. No shade on him—the industry was never known for its marketing chops. For that matter, I was never known for my merchandising chops, but I did know a great marketing idea when I saw it, and this was one of those times.

The brand was Oscar de la Renta—at the time a very popular and upscale women’s brand, and also, of course, a real person. But thanks to this vendor, the Oscar de la Renta brand had no menswear distribution. I knew two things: it was a great name, and women, who were very influential when it came to men’s clothing decisions, already knew it. This would be a perfect fit for Oxford.

Making every effort to hold back my enthusiasm, I casually asked the vendor if I could make a few inquiries on his behalf. He quickly agreed and was very appreciative.

I ran out of his office, immediately called Harold at Oxford, and made two strong suggestions—one: get this brand ASAP. And the other was to set up Oscar as a separate physical entity—not in Oxford’s New York offices. I knew this could be an opportunity for Oxford to compete in the “branded” space. But I also thought it needed to be romanced and not sold as an afterthought out of their Fifth Avenue offices. I also knew Harold would be excited at the thought of being the President of his own division at Oxford Industries.

Harold and the Oxford took my advice and within a matter of months opened a very cool-looking loft office on 55th Street in Manhattan—a few blocks from their main offices.

Their thank-you notes must have gotten lost in the mail…

On a subsequent trip to New York, I visited Harold in his new digs on 55th Street. He proudly showed me the offices, the branding materials, and of course, the fabric swatches for the first season of Oscar de la Renta clothing. After this breathless presentation, his enthusiasm waned, and he became silent, even a bit reticent. Maybe he was preparing the giant “thank you” for putting the deal together. Maybe it was going to be a giant discount for MW to buy the clothing. Maybe it was a giant poke in the eye.

Whaddya think…it was the poke in the eye. Harold sheepishly informed me he wouldn’t be able to sell the Oscar clothing to MW, for fear of reprisals from the department stores. My jaw dropped, but not before the rest of my mouth dropped a litany of f-bombs reminding him who put this whole shebang in motion.

Once I regained consciousness, I settled on something of a compromise—Oscar would sell clothing to MW, without the label, at a discounted price, while allowing us to print the brand on the price tags affixed to the sleeves of the suits and sport coats.

The compromise and the relationship were important, as within a few years MW was able to buy the Oscar clothing with the label, and we soon became the brand’s largest retail outlet in the country. It was a very successful partnership for both companies.

I did sorta walk away from Oxford and Oscar with a small token of appreciation, or maybe a token depreciation–of my heart. I later married, then divorced, the West Coast sales representative for Oscar de la Renta. Not a very successful partnership for Curmudg. She became my fifth or sixth ex-wife.

I’ll have to check the files.

A much less personally sad but much more eye-opening experience happened a few years later with yet another vendor. We were sitting—again, in their New York offices, negotiating the price of one particular product: navy blazers. These happened to be the backbone of MW’s sport coat offerings, and we bought tens of thousands of them each year. So the few dollars we were arguing over were not insignificant.

I was there with Jim Zimmer, who had then become the overall buyer of all suits and sport coats. On the other side of the table was the EVP of the company—Josh—and his sidekick, Bruce. The negotiations were getting increasingly loud yet going nowhere. At one point, Bruce turned to me and said, “Goldman, you’re like a freakin’ heartbeat. No matter what happens in here, no matter how loud it gets, you stay on point, pounding away. And you get what you want.”

I ignored him, and much like a heartbeat, kept up my lower-key diatribe about pricing. Mid-sentence, and a few minutes later, Bruce started: “Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.” Like a heartbeat.

That was it—I was done. All I could do was sit there and LMAO. He knew me well enough to completely disarm me—and my ability to get what I wanted. Fortunately, Jim was there to take over. But I was never able to negotiate seriously with this vendor again.

Yeah, relationships mattered. And they meant more than the transactions themselves. Turns out, sometimes there’s also a downside. The better you know the guy on the other side of the table, the better he knows you. Sometimes it gets you Oscar de la Renta. Sometimes it gets you the babe. Sometimes it gets you the divorce. Sometimes it costs you a bunch of bucks on a navy blazer.

Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

Sumabitch.

*If you know what this means, then cool—you get the brashness. If you don’t, never mind this footnote.

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