Fight Club Draws Techies for Underground Beatdowns

Inspired by the 1999 film Fight Club…underground bare-knuckle brawling clubs have sprung up across the country as a way for desk jockeys and disgruntled youths to vent their frustrations and prove themselves.

Grown men beating the shit out of each other is comedic. Some look to kick some ass after work, while others look to get some. We at DressMonkey prefer the latter.

Imagine kicking back in your favorite chair that sits in your apartment the next time you fly across the country; or, wearing your jeans inside out…as they’re supposed to be worn. Keep imagining and, if you’re like me, the desire of ever traveling in first class or changing out of your most comfortable demin quickly wanes.

This wacky idea of wearing a chair and reversible jeans may sound a bit odd to most of you, but it makes a whole lot of sense to Issey Miyake and his contingent of forward-thinking followers. Miyake is a Japanese fashion designer whose cutting-edge innovation -- A-POC technology and ‘chair wear’ -- is spicing up a rather insipid industry. By integrating home furnishing and fashion industry practices, Miyake’s style offers the comforts of home away from home and introduces to us all the potential new face of fashion and garment production for the 21st century, whereby traditional production processes of sweatshops around the world may become obsolete.

Check out the entire article here.

I boarded a bus this morning bound for Shaoxing, an industrial city 3 hours southwest of Shanghai in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province. Zhejiang is at the heart of China’s burgeoning textile industry where a large percentage of the world’s fabrics and finished textile products are produced. I'm sure the majority of DressMonkey’s upcoming “business trips” will be destined for this region. The two-lane highway connecting Shanghai to Shaoxing happened to follow an impressive constant stream of foreign owned textile factories and finishing plants where the brand name apparel items we spend hundreds on is made for pennies. Indeed, the drive was anything but ordinary, offering a candid snapshot of the kind of investments that are continually being made to China’s export-led economic growth.

The reason for my visit to China’s dirty backwaters was to tour a factory operated by a textile trading company that we are considering partnership with, as well as to gain some exposure to garment production. Our friend Aemy, the client liaison if you will between this trading agent and its nationwide network of garment factories, wanted to show me the production facilities of one of her top quality manufacturers of men’s apparel. She promised that I’d enjoy the visit and that it would be worth my time.

After the anticipated awkwardness of the Chinese greeting, which consists of fake smiles, weak handshakes, unnatural and drawn out head nods that falsely imply understanding, and the unnecessary ritual of swapping business cards, I was finally wisked away with the factory manager to a restaurant for lunch. I worried that I was being taken to the always dangerous yet highly entertaining Chinese-style banquet that is typical of any business occasion in China – where the food of choice is usually the organs of some animal or pet and the drink 100 proof rice wine. Turned out that wasn't the case, but instead I was treated to a pleasant seafood meal where you get to pick the fish you want and they scoop it out of its tank and cook it up.

With lunch sittin well in my stomach, we finally got down to business. I received a tour of the factory floor where all the garments are made. Hundreds of Chinese workers, men and women ranging in age from 16 to 65, working comfortably at their respective workstations. They were filling an order of 5,000 white cotton dress shirts for an Italian shirt maker. The pace at which these shirts were produced was incredible, at least for someone like me who'd never seen anything like it before! The production cost of one shirt was even more incredible: about $4 and change. 2 1/2 meters of cotton fabric, 12 plastic buttons, interlining, and some thread all sewn together in one highly effecient line of Chinese workers, all for the price of a Macdonald's happy meal.

I met with the factory manager after seeing the sample rooms and he immediately confirmed the worries I had going in. The problem we face, and will continue to face I'm afraid as we continue the search for local partners, is the ad-hoc production model and the low-volume nature of our business. The customization DressMonkey is hoping to offer to customers goes against the fundamentals of the textile production industry, which operates solely on a high-volume basis. All factories here want large volume orders and will therefore require minimums. What's needed to reach an agreement is a way for us to clearly convey the mutual benefits of cooperation. To accomplish this, the key will be to create a seachange in chinese business culture; to convince top managers to stop their obsession exclusively on short-term results and start realizing the business opportunities that develop in the long-term; to urge them all to think outside the box. This of course is a lot easier said than done. It will require a great deal of hardwork, determination, luck, and, in the end when a deal is struck, the inevitable moment of debauchery at the dreaded Chinese banquet table.

Check out T-Post, a company attempting to create fashion/political statements around a very cool concept: taking high-impact worldly events and depicting them through t-shirt design.

What a fresh idea in today's brave new world!

There are proper ways for storing a neck tie. You could either:

1) Lay it down flat in a drawer.
2) Fold it once and roll it up from the narrow end.

Both methods allow for the tie to settle and bring its shape back overnight.

It's that simple.

Avoid hanging them on a hanger like you may have done in high school or college. And when you feel a tie have seen its day, try wearing it as a belt instead of trashing it. You never know what female yuppie you may impress.

I hosted a brunch this afternoon for my parent’s 60th birthday. A beautiful summer day in Laguna Beach, CA and sipping mimosa’s with middle-aged entrepreneurs and retired physicians seemed like the perfect occasion for me to wear my new beige linen blazer that my tailor made last week. The blazer has a two-button front, side vents, a notched lapel, flap pockets, tan contrasting handpicked stitching around the lapel and buttonholes, and fully-lined in a cream colored silk. I wore it with a burgundy polo and dark blue jeans.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of interest and admiration I received from family and friends over the quality of the cut and fit of my blazer. What followed was an onslaught of curious questions about DressMonkey and its business model: Are all of your products made in China? How long until I receive my order? Where do you buy your fabric? You’re saying I can login to your website and customize my clothing and see preferences in real time? Who is designing your website? Are you having trouble finding quota for your dress shirts? When can I start buying your clothes? The questions kept coming and coming, and after what I had felt had been an entire afternoon of sales pitches and interrogation, I was finally asked the question that matters most in any purchase, even to the older, baby boomer demographic:

“How much would a jacket like this cost me?”
“Less than $100…” I said.

I had a pen and paper pasted around the party.

Five minutes later, I had the names, emails and measurements of the first eight DressMonkey customers.

Today was my first day back in sunny California. I had a meeting with our personal banker to finalize the setup of our business checking account - what a relief it was to receive our personal DressMonkey business checks and online banking account. Finally, after months of company expenses being paid from my personal account, the financials are starting to come together!

Separating business expense from personal expense will allow Coley and I to fully benefit from our Limited Liability Partnership status. The reason that we (like any LLP) do not want to blur the lines of what is personal v. business is that we would lose the liability protection that the entity provides us. What’s important, basically, is the fuzzy feeling I have now knowing that my capital investment in DressMonkey, which I was scared about in the beginning, has become more secure and therefore justifiable.

The meeting also marked the first official DressMonkey business of any kind that I was a part of this side of the Pacific. If today proved anything though, it was that meetings will be much more pleasant here than in China: no business cards were forced upon me, coffee was served instead of tea, and there were smells of popery instead of cigarettes. I even saw a cast member from MTV’s reality show Laguna Beach standing cashing a check!

Warm weather, civility in the workplace, and superficial pop-culture: a case of total reverse culture shock has set in. But it ain’t that bad. At least my investment is in order.