Greetings fellow DressMonkeys,

The SD Union Tribune wrote a really cool piece on DressMonkey last week, which has lit a definitive fire under the butt of SD's hip and fashion-forward men and women. DressMonkey HQ (San Diego) has received an enormous amount of inquiries from guys wanting to design their own clothing, custom lining, even their own lines over the last few days! We at DressMonkey are excited for the opportunity to grow our customer base and get to know potential key clients. As always, thank everyone for their continued support of our young company.

Read the article that's put us on the minds of So. Cal's future fashion designers
Apparel's New Pattern

I can't explain it beyond the fact that for some random, probably insignificant series of events that have culminated into me being probably the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. A very bold statement, and I plan to back it up with careful reasoning and evidence, but I needed to start this post with that simple and clear point.

It happened around 4pm today, I got an email from Jeff on an otherwise uninteresting and boring day saying that we were featured in the LA Times. It took me a second to register, and a few minutes for this to sink in, but eventually it did, and I realized how significant this really is for DressMonkey, and for me. No matter how small the print, placement, or even tone of the article, this has brought me up onto a high greater than anything I've experienced before. One thing that no book about business, no professor, nor anybody thinking they know anything can tell you is how you'll feel when risks that you have taken, crazy ideas which made sense to no one but yourself, and late nights spent slaving away for some distant and undefined goal are all somehow legitimized. Thats exactly how I feel right now, I don't know why it happened, I really don't but I feel absolutely amazing. Someone in a position to supply even a shred of legitimacy to this crazy-ass thing we call DressMonkey has just bestowed upon me something that is beyond words, and beyond value. This is why I was poor for a year and a half, barely eeking by by the seat of my pants. This is why I took the bus and ate dumplings every day. This is why I missed Ziggy Marley (one of my now favorite reggae artists) when he came to Shanghai because I couldn't afford to go. This is why I worked 14 hour days at home. This is what being an entrepreneur is all about.

Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone public, seen an enormous spike in orders, or passed even the beginning of the hard parts that will surely surface over the next few years. But what we have done is achieved our first moment of solid, serious recognition and that has brought me to a mood and feeling far beyond money or material things ever could bring.

I should note that I've had a pretty difficult few months up until now. Our order levels weren't increasing the way we had hoped, my girlfriend left me, and I was in utter disarray for a solid chunk of time there. That came out in apathy towards blog posting among other things that I feel are now well behind me. And then things started to turn around a few weeks ago. We got a solid set of order volumes, new press, our wicked awesome movie finally came out, and we got some spankin new fabrics up online. I cannot begin to tell you how opposite I feel now of my former self. I told my friends today that I was on Cloud 17, and it's true.

I'm not looking to promote anything, tell you a funny story, or do anything but vent my happiness in this post. I have no explanation for my overwhelming sense of joy, (well, maybe part of it was because a LA Times reporter called my product descriptions 'hilarious') I have never felt so reinvigorated about anything in my entire life. This feeling I'm having right now is why I started this company, this is why I'll continue to do work for this company, and this is why I don't have a single regret about anything, not one. Time to drink a bottle of champagne for the first time ever that I paid for by myself, this company, and we deserve it.

More exciting buzz for DressMonkey (and best of all, we are mentioned first...before Banana Republic and J.Crew).

Go bold.

"Express yourself by choosing a bold color or print on the inside of your blazer such as red, white silk or printed designs based on Chinese textiles," says Horowitz. "Try pairing a neutral gray or camel blazer with a shirt in one of the neon colors that are back this spring, such as orange, yellow, green, blue, pink and purple."

Read the entire article, Spring Into Style

The guys over at Thrillist are our friends. No, really they are. They recently wrote a fabulous review about us, check it out here! We at DressMonkey HQ are partying like spider monkeys for being their fans. Thrillist.com by the way is killing it these days.

Friedman, a 24-year-old from Los Angeles, subscribes to Thrilllist.com, which bills itself as a lifestyle guide for men. It keeps him in the know with daily e-mails that advise him, basically, on how to be cool. He has dined at restaurants it suggested, attended events it plugged and purchased gadgets it recommended, including a cover for his iPhone."It's a trusted break in my barrage of e-mail," Friedman said. "It's kind of like an e-mail from a friend."

AHOJ Slovakian Monkeys!

Jasné že už máte tenisky, jeansy, hodinky a dokonca aj headset navrhnutý podľa vlastného gusta, k dokonalej elegancii Vám však chýba superštýlové sako presne podľa Vašich náročných požiadaviek.

Read More (if you can)

We knew the Chinese love us, and we're hoping Americans will too. But the Slovakians??? Our international appeal is officially off the the charts!

More favorable reviews for us from the blogosphere...

From Rokovoko

If a bloke ain't exactly bespoke but has a style of his own, he may want to consider the affordabale custom-designed blazers at dressmonkey.com. For less than a lot of off-the-rack options, you can choose from. . .

Read the entire article, click here

From She Knows Best

Dress Monkey was founded by 2 guys in their 20’s which offers custom designed luxury blazers with affordable prize tags. Customize your own blazer by...

Read the entire review, click here

Custom Men's Clothing Company Blazing a New Trail in China

From The Branded Male

Paris-based men's fashion journalist Mark Tungate interviews Coley Dale, co-founder of Shanghai, China-based DressMonkey (www.dressmonkey.com) about his company that offers high-quality custom-made men's blazers online at a fraction of the price for off-the-rack products in most stores.

Read entire story, click here.

We are proud to have been a part of the Sixth Annual A Night At The Academy Awards Gala last month in New Haven, CT, to benefit Leeway and the treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS. Leeway is Connecticut's first and only skilled nursing facility dedicated to caring for people with HIV/AIDS. The event was sponsored by the Yale New-Haven Hospital and PharMerica, among others...

Congratulations to Terry of Madison, CT for placing the highest bid at this year's event and taking home his very own personalized blazer! He designed a beautiful jacket made from our luxurious blended wool and silk nailhead tweed. More about the Leeway Organization...

Sometimes being an entrepreneur is great, other times not so much. I am now 2 hours into a 6 hour bus ride from Shanghai to Wenzhou to sign a contract with a new factory so that they can produce in time for our May 1st launch. The bus, with a less-than-delightful mix of odors circulating around the crowded seats, has very little legroom for your average Chinese man, let alone a 6 foot 2 foreigner. Underneath me in the luggage compartment sits 2 large rolls of linen for our Off the Rack line, which I had to haul through the bus terminal and past endless streams of staring Chinese people, all talking about me with no idea that I could understand every word. "Why would a foreigner be taking so much fabric on the bus," one woman said to her husband while they both shared a bag of sunflower seeds. "He has a big nose, but its not the biggest I've ever seen," said one onlooker.

The snoring guy next to me losing the loudness contest to the atrocious VCD blaring canto-pop. The problem is, I'm the only one who seems to actually dislike this horrible situation, thus further proving my inability to change anything about my surroundings. So, I continue to bury my head in my laptop which is quickly running out of power. What I will do after the battery is gone? I'm not sure, but it will likely involve granola bars and frustration.

I've got a crazy day ahead of me, we're negotiating with a factory to produce our first non-customizable line of blazers in response to some complaints that our prices were a little high. Its our mission to provide a low-cost alternative to the big guys without sacrificing quality and that's why I'm sitting on this bus right now. The factory will produce our products with a low enough cost that we'll be able to undercut just about everyone for certain blazers, all the while giving you a premium product that has every detail you'd expect from a blazer for $500. Connecting the factory floors of China with you the consumer, sans middlemen.

After I sign our contract, and the customary Chinese baijiu has been consumed in mass quantities, I'm getting on a plane at 10pm to fly back to Shanghai. Then, another day of madness in anticipation of our May 1 launch. Over and out from the middle of Zhejiang province.

Goddamn Chinese Government

It's been slow going on the updates so far, due in large part to my crazy schedule at school and the fact that DressMonkey.com is now officially blocked in China. The paranoid Chinese government has decided to censor a batch of IP addresses located on one of our hosts' servers, and unfortunately, our's was on there! Which means, Coley can't post to our site, let alone view it. We can get around this problem by using proxy servers, but that methods is both tedious and limited. We're considering moving hosts, however are hesitant to do so considering that censorship is completely random and webhosts are essentially powerless when it comes to IP address blockage in China.