pdf - Sid Mashburn

THE GOOD LIFE
T HE G OO D L I FE
e’s a designer. a suitmaker.
h
And a shopkeeper. But more than all that,
Sid Mashburn is a man who has remade his
world according to the slightly twisted notion
of the modern gentleman he has in his head.
Sid
Mashburn’s
Impeccably
Tailored
Universe
by Elvis Mitchell
WILLIAM
& SUSAN
BRINSON
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S
GROOMING: CLAUDIA MEJERLE ROGERS
T HE G OO D L I FE
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Sid Mashburn is more
than just a menswear
shop. “We’re in the
hospitality business,”
says Mashburn,
“and we’re trying to
build community.”
Whether you go in
for a handmade
suit (or to have your
old suit refitted by
the in-house tailor),
some hand-dyed
Tretorns, tortoiseshell
frames, or a cold beer,
you’ll be treated like a
guest, not a mark.
ome people bring their
work home with them. You might suppose that Sid
Mashburn is one of those guys—the man was born with a
name so brand-ready he basically had to become an
entrepreneur. But for the long-limbed and quick-to-smile
creator of the rigorously assembled yet completely relaxed
clothing line and expanding series of men’s stores that bear
his name, the membrane that separates work from home
is so thin and porous that it’s nonexistent. How permeable?
On a picnic table in his Atlanta backyard is a sea of denim
Tretorn sneakers, each pair a subtly different shade of blue.
The shoes are baking in the mid-afternoon Georgia sun
because Sid has run all of them through his home washing
machine. His wife, Ann—together the couple have five
daughters, and her women’s boutique adjoins Sid’s place—
shrugs bemusedly. He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do.
The whole equation of Mashburn’s endeavor is something
he carries around with him constantly, developing it through
interaction and conversation—it’s an aesthetic that’s both
fully formed and a work in progress. It’s probably why his home,
a loving accretion of furniture and acquisitions he and Ann
have culled over their three-decade-plus relationship, has a
comfy-chair elegance. And, as with their stores (Atlanta;
Dallas; Houston; Washington, D.C.; and a booming e-comm
operation), you wish you could own much of the stuff this
couple have collected. The most welcoming part of a visit to
Sid’s is that the Mashburn perspective doesn’t engender envy,
as some retail enterprises (or, for that matter, homes) do. Nor
do you end up feeling the aggression that sometimes informs
southern fashion enterprises—the fratty rugby elbows that
say, “You, buddy, don’t belong here. Keep it moving and don’t
let your nose smear the window.” Rather, Sid’s warm-blooded
openness just makes you want to want to kick it with him. Yet Sid’s most formidable characteristic might be his
generosity—it grows out of his curiosity, which he wears as
a form of assurance. What’s his is yours, and—again—all
areas of his life intersect. Example: As we’re sitting in his living
room, he points out a desk that he’s owned for more than
a decade. I notice that the finish on the beveled edges of
the desk chairs matches the finish on the Sid Mashburn
tassel loafers he had made in Italy. Turns out, the cobbler told
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T HE G OO D L I FE
Sid that giving the shoes such a finish was unnecessary
and, moreover, the strap of suede that attached the tassel
shouldn’t be as long or as visible as Sid was proposing.
Sid smiles and notes that he agreed with the craftsman. But
he got what he wanted anyway without confrontation; it
was a conversation about ideas and philosophy that won the
shoemaker over. There’s something blissful about Mashburn’s
conviction, gentility, and ability to connect. He’s a born
communicator, and isn’t that finally what style is all about?
An afternoon at Sid Mashburn, Atlanta
What kind of stores did you shop in
when you were a kid?
S I D M A S H B U R N : The stores I grew up in were the kind of
stores where, when you walked in the door, it was like,
“Elvis! Where you been, man? Make yourself at home.” They
were really open to the whole community. Those kind of
stores are going away. There’s no succession plan. Not ’cause
the store owners don’t want one; it’s just that the kids don’t
necessarily want to be in the business. They don’t want
to work on Saturdays, you know? I mean, this is hard. You’ve
gotta love this to do it and do it well. The chain stores will
never act like the local independent specialty store. They
will never get into the hearts and minds and lives of people.
They’re too big to act local. My grandparents owned stores in a small agricultural
community in Pelahatchie, Mississippi, which is not even on
the map. They had a hardware store, a clothes store, and a
furniture store. And they served the whole community. There
was lots of layaway. [laughs] Their role was to make a living,
not to get rich—to take care of the community and do
something they loved to do. ELV IS MITC H ELL:
And I’m sure they were in the town square, weren’t they?
Yeah, just off Main and Main. And what’s interesting about
our stores now is we—it’s a little bit like a frat, but everybody
gets a bid. So, a guy comes out of the dressing room at
our store on Saturday; he’s got a sleeve of tattoos, and he’s
getting his Levi’s fitted. Then, the managing director of
an important law firm is in the next dressing room. He comes
out and they look at each other like, “What are you doing
here?” The guy with the sleeve of tattoos, he was a roadie.
He’s a music guy, and the managing director of the law
firm plays guitar in a band, so all of a sudden we’re helping
people connect. We’re all a hell of a lot more related to
each other than we purport to be. So, in a funny sense, we’re a service business. So, how did this whole enterprise begin?
My wife was working at Vogue when we met. I was working at
British Khaki. We both came from design. But what we put into
this space—something that comes through with maturity—is
the idea that the experience is super important. The service is
super important. The quality is paramount. And then the value
is important. Because whether you spend $65 on a pair of Levi’s
or $15,000 on a handmade suit, either is going to deliver for a
long time. Everybody’s idea of value is a little bit different, but
we want you to always feel like you got more than your money’s
worth. We used to carry a lot of [Brunello] Cucinelli apparel.
Which is like a really high price point for you, right?
Super-high prices. A man came in who was a farmer,
but a very well-to-do farmer. Could’ve bought and sold
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“Music, sports, and
clothes defined my
youth,” says Mashburn.
“There’s always some
music going on in
the house.” The drum
set was a gift from
his wife, Ann (pictured
lower right), and five
daughters. While the
interior of the Mashburn
house maintains a
tastefully genderless
decor, don’t be mistaken:
“It’s like estrogen city,”
he says. “Anyplace
I go to carve out as my
own gets colonized
by the female culture.”
Although Mashburn has
expanded to Texas and
D.C., with new locations
in the works, he first
fine-tuned his store in
Atlanta over six years.
The family home is just a
couple of miles from
the Westside flagship.
our store a hundred times. He’s very successful. He’s in
the poultry business. He’s a country guy—very nice, very
quietly elegant, but not a fancy dresser or anything.
He went straight to a Cucinelli down vest. Cashmere. And he
went to turn the tag over and my stomach just dropped.
It’s, like, an $1,800 down vest. I’m like, “How in the hell did
I have an $1,800 down vest?”
Now, was it worth it, based off of the economics of
Brunello Cucinelli? Absolutely. But you know what? One of
the reasons we got into this business was to make fashion
and nice things more accessible to more people. In the end,
I’m just a guy from Mississippi that likes nice stuff and wants
to share it with everyone. Our version of that vest now is $500.
Brunello Cucinelli’s a good guy. They have a great product.
So I don’t mean to cast a negative stance towards that. It’s
just that, for us, it wasn’t right.
As I see it, our job is to provide solutions for people so there’s
economy of mind, time, and money. Okay, the economy
of mind is that we’ve made the choices—I’ve been doing this
for 40 years. I’m cool with only offering two brands of jeans.
The economy of time is getting you in and out of here
as quickly as possible. ’Cause you’ve got more fun things to
do. Now, we make it pretty nice in here. We’ll give you a
drink, we get you some good music, we don’t harass you. But
oftentimes, a beautiful day like today, I want to either go
exercise or go do something with my kids.
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And then the economy of money is, we’re direct. I buy the
fabric. I buy the buttons. I contract for the manufacturer, so
I’m skipping the wholesale markup and coming straight to the
consumer. Or, in this case, our friends who are our customers.
My style icon has always been Sidney Poitier. And I love
that you have the Virgil sports jacket in your line, named
after Poitier’s Virgil Tibbs from In the Heat of the Night.
He’s the man. My other jacket is called Kincaid, after my dad,
and the third is called Landry, after the coach. I hated the
Cowboys. I was a Vikings fan! Anyway, I love Coach Landry, who
said his job is to get men to do things they aren’t inclined to
do, to achieve what they want to achieve. That’s my role here.
The Virgil is the first jacket we built. Back in the ’60s, the suit
that Sidney Poitier was wearing was loosely based around
the idea of a sack jacket. Undarted, single vent. And when I say
undarted, in a way that means you’re kind of unvarnished.
We took that idea: natural shoulder and also the three-button,
rolled to two. So we’ve got guys who say, “Shoot, man, I do
court in south Georgia. I can’t show up in side vents and
tailored all tight, you know? I need a jacket with a center vent!”
You said that the idea of the white Levi’s you sell is that
they’re basically the cheapest fashion a man can buy, right? Yeah. It really is your entry. We wear them year-round.
Guys come in here, and we go, “You gotta get a pair of
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“It’s super important
for me to have the
foundation,” Mashburn
says. “I can dress
pretty well in any place
that I show up, from
Manhattan to Milan to
Morocco.” His personal
collection includes the
wardrobe standards
(blue jeans, gray trousers,
navy suits), as well as a
few pieces with unique
character (Justin cowboy
boots, a handwoven
shantung tie from India,
and a handkerchief
embroidered by his wife).
Sid and Ann met in
New York when she
was working for Vogue
and he at British Khaki.
“We helped find each
other’s design voice,”
he says. Over the years,
they’ve collected an
eclectic mix of pieces for
their home and stores,
but they keep plenty of
open space in both.
these.” And they’re like, “Never.” And then we finally
get ’em on them, and then they wear them, and they want
more: “I need a second pair!” Because you wear them
with everything. So the weight, mentally, allows you to wear
them in the wintertime, because they’re warm enough,
but also I’ll wear them in the middle of the summer. I don’t
feel like it’s too hot to wear a pair of these jeans.
I’m noticing that there’s not a lot of black in the store.
We don’t sell black. Except for a tuxedo, a black cashmere
sweater every now and then. We’re actually going to have a
black suit next year for the first time. But black just tends
to go a bit funereal or real fashion. So we like dark charcoal.
It’s a tad softer and a little bit more versatile.
What did you learn in the first week of opening?
When somebody crosses over the threshold of our store,
they’ve said, “I want to find out about you.” So when someone
invests their time in us, I feel the responsibility to deliver.
It may just be a smile. It may just be a Coke. It may just be
a beer. It may just be an encouragement. Maybe just an
introduction. Doesn’t cost anything.
I mean, it’s really about responsibility, isn’t it?
It is. Also, our prices tend to be better on products of the
same ilk, ’cause we’re making it in the same factories, using
the same fabrics and raw materials that the best of the best
are using. You know, we use a particular calf out of France—it’s
the finest calf in the world. We use alligator from tanneries
that are used by you-know-who. We don’t really cut corners.
We’re looking to add corners.
A morning at Sid and Ann’s house, Buckhead
So, who found your house?
A N N M A S H B U R N : A Realtor who we had for about five minutes.
S M : I bought it without seeing it.
A M : We wanted a pool, because in Atlanta, it’s so hot in the
summer, and we’re totally not club people. You get so
burnt out at the end of the week. We just needed a place to
chill. And I really wanted a house that had a kitchen that
was crummy, because I really wanted to renovate a kitchen.
And that I got to do.
It actually looks a little bit like the store.
A M : Yeah, it is like the store. We trade stuff in and out.
SM: We probably spend more time, though, on developing and
designing and outfitting the stores than we do on the house.
WHEN SOMEONE INVESTS
THEIR TIME IN US, I FEEL THE
RESPONSIBILITY TO
DELIVER. IT MAY JUST BE A
SMILE. IT MAY JUST BE A COKE.
˜ s i d m a s h bur n
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AM: Yeah, definitely. And also it was, like, we were broke.
Not broke, but we just put our own stuff in the store to spend
less money when we first built it up.
S M: This is a nice, beautiful house. But I’m self-conscious of it,
to be honest with you. I don’t want to give people the wrong
impression, but the truth of it is, there’s only three bedrooms
in this house. It’s not lavish.
How far is the house from the store?
S M: Ten minutes, and ten minutes from the office. This is
a thing that’s interesting: New York, if I had gone back and
done this there, I would not have lived outside of the city.
I think you gotta live in your store. I think you can’t act local;
you gotta be local. We have core values, and the core values
are hopefulness, helpfulness—those were the first two things
I encountered when I came to Atlanta. ’Cause everybody
here was hopeful: “Today’s a good day, and I think tomorrow’s
gonna be better.” And helpfulness doesn’t know boundaries
here in Atlanta. “What can I get for you?” “What do you need?”
“How can I help you out?” The other piece that rounds it out
is humility, and the combination of all of that together leads
to honor. ’Cause we’re trying to build a location where you
have honor in what you do. And it doesn’t get any higher
than serving people. Martin Luther King said you don’t have
to be Socrates, you don’t have to be Aristotle, all you have
to do is have a heart to serve. That’s it. And when you can do
that, you don’t have to worry about pay, you don’t have to
worry about anything. It will come back to you in some form
or fashion. Cool thing is, I get to do it in product I love.
has hosted KCRW’s pop-culture interview
show, The Treatment, since 1996. He likes clothes.
e lv i s m i t c h e l l
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