One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a sophisticated gentleman in the advertising profession stopped by Steve Austin Designer Menswear. He was the kind of customer, Austin says, who only comes along once or twice a year. “He cherry-picked the place. He was really refined, with great taste; he got two Armani sportscoats, size 42 long, and they fit him perfectly. Absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. I wanted them for myself, but I’m too skinny. He also got two suits and a cashmere topcoat, all for $1,700. That sounds like a lot of money, but the clothes were approximately $6,900 retail value, and you couldn’t tell the stuff from new. Absolutely unbelievable.”
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To distinguish between a secondhand suit Austin sells in his Lakeview store and a brand-new one, you’d have to be a suit salesman. Austin accepts only merchandise of the highest quality with no sign of wear. “I won’t even take them if they’re worn out from a pen being put in the pocket,” he says. He stocks Zegna, Canali, Versace, Calvin Klein, and Giorgio of Beverly Hills, from size 36 short to 50 long. “I even have suits from Bijan of Beverly Hills, with the double vent. They interviewed Bijan about 15 years ago on 60 Minutes, and the cheapest item of clothing in his store was a $110 pair of socks. I’m selling this whole suit for $289.”
Austin’s customers, on the other hand, range from lawyers slightly farther down the food chain to teenagers buying their first sportcoat to guys who need a suit to get married in. There are at least four other establishments in Chicago that sell used designer men’s suits exclusively, and several women’s shops have some lying around as well. Austin is friendly with all of them, as he often supplies them with his runoff merchandise. “If a guy needs a suit right away,” he says, “I want to make sure he gets one. My Yellow Pages rep used to live down the block. He was clearly a 39 short. He’d come in and buy 40 regulars and have them completely recut by his tailor. They looked like they were made for him. He went through my inventory, buying the best Zegnas and Armanis, and said it was worth tailoring those suits, because he was still way under half price.”
