Career clothiers keep it classic
By Katie Pelech
Photograph by Mark Gilliland
In a city like St. Louis, most clothes shopping is done in malls and chain stores. With their constant rotation of pimply-faced clerks home for summer break and tinny Top 40, these places can make dressing oneself a heinous chore, a dreadful process neither enjoyable nor artful. Women, of course, can always retreat to the scented-candle sanctity of boutiques, but for men there is little recourse.
Save Woody’s.
Just ask owner Mo Erwin, who began working for the original Woody’s in Kansas City in 1970 and has been devoted to the store and his customers ever since. He has regulars who’ve been coming back for decades. As we chat near the entrance of his store—now relocated from its previous abode in Plaza Frontenac to the Le Chateau business complex—men browse. He greets each by name and inquires about wives, children and jobs, no cheat sheet necessary. “I’m a buyer for my customer,” he explains, “not a seller for my manufacturer.”
As such, he searches endlessly for the most exclusive and sumptuous products. Although Woody’s will always be adored for its custom suits—tailored by the same man for the last 22 years in every permutation, from funeral-director chic to sports-agent swank—the store now has other tricks up its perfectly pressed sleeve.
One such addition is Zen by Robert Graham. The colorful hand-dyed and embroidered shirts have been selling out, marking a first in Woody’s history: In 33 years, explains Erwin, he’s never under-bought a product. And New York’s V.K. Nagrani has deigned to allow Woody’s to carry his ultraluxe line of men’s hosiery. Nagrani is notoriously particular about where his products are sold—he’s rebuffed all department stores because he finds mass production distasteful. Woody’s, however, passed the test.
“I wanted to take it back to a time when people actually cared about what they produced,” says Nagrani, explaining why he employs only boutique factories with an average employee tenure of eight years to manufacture his product. “If you’re going to be in luxury, then it should be all the way across, not exploiting some 12-year-old kid and selling it as high fashion. How can that be luxury?”
It isn’t, of course. Luxury is rare; it’s thoughtful details, high-quality materials and personal service—and in St. Louis it’s just off Clayton Road and open on Saturdays.
Woody’s | 10411 Clayton, Suite 104 | 314-569-3272
