2 would be looking at a lot of plus-size women’s lines,” Mazur said, explaining that women’s brands had more successfully targeted niche audiences. Appropriately, then, Ash & Anvil’s second inspiration came from outside the menswear market altogether. But Bonobos still caters to men in general, initially promising pants that “just fit,” meaning that the company is still targeting the industry’s mythical “average” guy. First was the formerly online-only menswear retailer Bonobos, which, Mazur told me, had built its Web presence around the dual tenets of fit and service. When I asked Huang and Mazur about other companies that had influenced them, however, they didn’t point to their KickStarted compatriots, instead referencing two other sources of inspiration. Both of these strands have been important to Ash & Anvil, which invited potential customers to preorder shirts through an Indiegogo campaign that concluded in September. Simultaneously, crowdfunding platforms-which have facilitated the success of men’s clothing brands like Flint and Tinder-have provided new companies with capital while helping them convince consumers that they have a stake in a new brand’s success. Mazur acknowledges as much, telling me, “five or 10 years ago we probably wouldn’t be able to have the business.” Thanks to targeted advertising and the normalization of small online communities, it’s increasingly easy to reach highly specific, widely disseminated audiences. Theirs is the kind of business that could only thrive in and through the commercial Internet as it exists today. Eventually they hope to expand their line to include pants, polos, and more, always unapologetically identifying these products as “shorter guy clothes.” They began to ship those shirts-priced at less than $70-last week. Mazur and his business partner Eric Huang hope to change that with Ash & Anvil, marketing casual button-down shirts to men between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-8. This may be why even smaller companies have declined to reach out to this market, despite the significant portion of the population that falls within it. “A lot of companies don’t want to be associated with it when they’re going after the average, middle-of-the-road guy.” Even if the term isn’t entirely positive, “big and tall” still connotes strength and power, but short just invites mockery. Steven Mazur, co-founder of a new company called Ash & Anvil, has another solution. Our Goliaths, on the other hand, need larger apparel if they’re going to clothe themselves at all. The Davids of the world may look silly in garments that are too big, but at least they won’t burst out of them. To some extent, they’re probably motivated by practical considerations. Some companies sell “big and tall” lines-and businesses like Casual Male XL cater directly to a larger clientele-but few, if any at all, explicitly accommodate their more miniscule male customers. Though womenswear manufacturers have long produced petite lines, there’s no real equivalent for men. Mainstream clothing companies have done little to allay this dilemma.
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