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In July, the Wall Street Journal ran a headline: “Can Buck Mason become the next great American menswear brand?”
It’s a weighty expectation to place on the brand, which was founded by Erik Allen Ford and Sasha Koehn in 2013. But the two founders try not let questions like that interfere with their strategy of making high-quality menswear.
“Sasha and I make clothes for an audience of two: me and him,” Ford said. “We’re trying to be Sasha and Erik’s favorite American brand, and we make the products we love and want to make.”
Koehn agreed, adding that he thinks about the brand in terms of decades and that all of Buck Mason’s decisions are guided by long-term thinking. So far, that has paid off. The company’s annual sales exceed $100 million, with annual revenue growing steadily by 50%. Buck Mason now has more than 50 stores spread fairly evenly across the country, with the majority in New York and California.
Through it all, the founders have focused on simple, high-quality goods — the kind that are appreciated by super-knowledgeable menswear fanatics, as well as men who don’t want to think too much about what they’re wearing. Its classic, solid heavyweight T-shirt is often cited on fashion lists as the best in class.
Despite its long association with menswear, women’s fashion has become a growth driver for Buck Mason. In 2021, the women’s wear launch marked the time the brand’s menswear-obsessed founders weren’t just making something they’d want to wear. To ensure expertise, they brought in womenswear designer Rachel Wilder, formerly of Frame and A.L.C., to become the brand’s evp of design and merchandising for women’s.
Womenswear has swiftly risen to become 30% of the business, and its growth trajectory remains strong.
“We still sell more men’s on the whole, but there will be days when one women’s product will sell three times more than any other unit in men’s,” Ford said.
The latest big move for Buck Mason was the opening of a new flagship store in SoHo, now the largest store in its fleet, in July. It’s also the first store primarily focused on the growing women’s business, with Buck Mason billing it as the brand’s first women’s flagship. Women’s clothes take up the entire ground floor of the store, while menswear resides on the second.
As the company grows, Koehn said one major priority will be ensuring that its culture of obsessing over products and the most minute details stays true.
“At scale, culture trumps all,” Koehn said. “The more we can [internally] collect these certain types of product-obsessed people, who are as obsessed as we are and just as willing to go the hard way to get the right things done, that’s the dream. And it applies to all departments, not just product.”
