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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Shop Talk Meet the businessman's clothier: William Wilson
Posted By Kimberly Lawson on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 1:55 PM
William Wilson is a businessman's best friend. His suit is finely pressed, his tie is in place and he knows how to make corporate America look good. As a custom clothier, he specializes in men’s clothing, professional clothing, custom and ready-made. He also does image consulting and recently developed a program called POINTS, which stands for Power of Image in Today’s Society, in which he goes into high schools and colleges to talk to kids about image and the effect of image to the rest of their lives.
How did you get into the business of custom clothing?
Well I’ve always been interested in fashion, looking well and stuff like that. I used to own a company that did big high-end custom homes, so I kind of but together a good friend base of athletes, and they were always telling me to help them with their clothes, put this together, put that together. I was so busy doing that, I decided I needed to get paid for this. Dice kind of fell the right way and I started my own company, William Wilson Clothing, which has officially been running for a year and a half, but I've been doing this about three years now.
Who are some of your clients?
Most of my clients like to stay discrete. Guys at that level, they don’t necessarily like to let people know what they’re doing. The two guys I can tell you about, Mike Barber, who played in the NFL, just started his new company, Pro Athletes Counsel. I did four suits for him. He played for the Colts and the Sea Hawks.
Lenny McAllister, he’s a political analyst — he’s on Fox News Rising, he’s on CNN, various things like that. I did a tuxedo for him for the inaugural ball for President Obama’s inauguration.
What's the first step in designing a person's clothing or putting together a wardrobe?
I sit down with my clients and we do a consultation. I find out what they do, what their normal environment is, and how they want to be portrayed. Once we establish that, I start to map out what clothes to put together, what suits they should wear. I also want to make sure they’re portraying the image they want to portray.
What kind of suits are popular right now?
The 2-button, dual-side vent, 100 percent wool suit is really the standard right now. Colors for suits pretty much stay standard; you’ve got your grays, blues, blacks, some browns, your natural colors, those corporate colors. What you’re starting to see now is that people are starting to understand that you can dress up the suit with a different type of shirt and tie. corporate America still continues to be pretty conservative. You’re starting to see a little more color, blues, lavenders, but not too far off the beaten path. A lot of times what you see on the news is what you see in corporate America.
Check out Wilson's Web site or call him at 704-363-0224.
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