Siddharth Dungarwal turned a shut-down B2B clothing business into a menswear machine that launches around 35 designs a day - and got all five sharks to write a cheque.
The Hanoi startup removed the browsing, bargaining and return anxiety from buying basics. Now it is testing whether a frictionless menswear formula can travel across categories, storefronts and borders.
Two brothers quit jobs they disliked, borrowed $8,000 on credit cards and started selling neckties from a Jeep. Twenty-eight years later, their most valuable product may still be the feeling stitched into a smiling pink whale.
A former fit model turned the fitting room into a research lab. Two decades later, PAIGE sells denim, tailoring, footwear and wardrobe staples through more than 1,000 retailers in over 80 countries.
David J. Katz is Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and self-styled 'Alchemist in Residence' at Randa Apparel & Accessories, one of the world's largest apparel and accessories companies, home to brands like Levi's, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Haggar and Dickies. He blends data, neuroscience, behavioral economics and storytelling to understand and influence consumer behavior across roughly 1,200 employees and more than 20,000 retail touchpoints worldwide. A LinkedIn Top Voice, co-author of the best-selling 'Design for Response,' and a frequent speaker at Shoptalk and NRF, he is a widely cited voice on retail, marketing and the arrival of AI in the store.
Davide Mattucci is the Chief Marketing Officer of BYLT Basics, the Irvine, California premium essentials label known for its structured tees and loyalty-driven direct-to-consumer model. He has spent more than 20 years across global apparel brands - prAna, Brixton, adidas, Under Armour and Fanatics - moving fluidly from design and product creation into brand marketing and digital commerce. At BYLT he is helping steer the company's shift from an online seller of product into a full lifestyle brand with physical stores, bringing a 360-degree view of how product, storytelling and marketplace strategy connect with real customers.
Jordan Hauser is a New York-based retail marketing and merchandising executive who leads marketing and creative at Paul Fredrick, the Pennsylvania menswear company founded in 1986 that built its name on dress shirts sold with exact sleeve lengths and a fit guarantee. Listed publicly as Senior Vice President of Marketing & Creative (and as Chief Marketing Officer in some directory listings), he sits at the junction of two disciplines that rarely share an office: the merchandising side that decides what gets made, and the marketing side that decides how it gets told. His track record runs through department-store scale and startup scrappiness alike - director-level digital and merchandising roles across Macy's men's business and Market by Macy's, then VP of Merchandising & Marketing at Offe Market, the off-price marketplace for brand overstock. At Paul Fredrick he inherited a brand with roughly 88 employees, around $21 million in annual revenue, a Shopify Plus storefront, and forty years of accumulated customer trust in a category that has spent the last decade being told it was dying.

Krista Fraioli Mullen is Chief Marketing Officer of Eleventy USA, LLC, the New York arm of the Milan-founded 'smart luxury' label Eleventy. She spent more than a decade at Harry Winston, climbing from US marketing coordinator to Director of US Marketing & Public Relations, learning to sell objects whose price is rarely printed. Educated in public relations at Hofstra University, she began her career in business development at Tangram International Exhibitions before moving into jewelry. At Eleventy she works on the American side of a brand that counts the United States as its largest market, roughly 45 percent of a business that reached about 125 million euros in 2025. Her public footprint is deliberately thin: one LinkedIn profile, no personal Instagram, no manifesto. In an industry that mistakes volume for influence, that is its own kind of statement.
Billy Reid is an American luxury fashion house based in Florence, Alabama, founded by four-time CFDA-winning designer Billy Reid. Known as 'American luxury built to last,' the brand blends Southern craft and hospitality with a New York sensibility, offering menswear, womenswear, custom tailoring, footwear and accessories through freestanding stores, wholesale partners and a direct-to-consumer site. Beyond clothing, Billy Reid is a culture brand - its Shindig festival brings together music, food, art and design in the Muscle Shoals region.
BYLT Basics is a Southern California premium apparel brand that reengineers everyday wardrobe staples - tees, polos, joggers and outerwear - with heavier, longer-lasting performance fabrics and tailored fits. Founded in 2016 by Eric Mear, who was frustrated that basic black T-shirts fell apart after a few washes, the direct-to-consumer label built its reputation on its flagship Drop-Cut silhouette and has grown into an omnichannel business spanning men's, women's and kids' lines sold online, in retail stores, and at wholesale partners like Nordstrom, shipping to over 50 countries.
Eleventy USA is the North American arm of Eleventy, a Milan-based Italian luxury label founded in 2007 by Marco Baldassari and Paolo Zuntini. Built on a philosophy of 'Smart Luxury' - understated, logo-free clothing that blends traditional Italian tailoring with modern comfort - the brand sells men's and women's ready-to-wear, sportswear, shoes, leather goods, eyewear and accessories. Since establishing its New York headquarters in 2016, Eleventy USA has grown its stateside footprint to eight flagships and become a leading example of the 'quiet luxury' movement in America.
Fabletics is a membership-based activewear brand founded in 2013 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. Built on a VIP subscription model that pairs monthly credits with data-driven personalization, it sells women's and men's activewear, footwear, swimwear, loungewear, and medical scrubs across e-commerce and 120+ retail stores. In 2025 the company crossed $1 billion in annual revenue with more than 3 million active customers, roughly 2.7 million of them VIP members.
J.Crew is a New York-based American specialty apparel retailer founded in 1983, known for preppy, versatile clothing for men, women and children sold through stores, catalogs and jcrew.com. Part of J.Crew Group (which also owns Madewell), the brand pairs updated wardrobe classics with quality fabrics and a run of buzzy cultural collaborations, and is executing a widely covered comeback under CEO Libby Wadle after emerging from a 2020 Chapter 11 restructuring.
Paul Fredrick is a Pennsylvania-based direct-to-consumer menswear company founded in 1986 that built its name on well-fitting dress shirts and grew into a full men's wardrobe brand covering shirts, suits, sport coats, pants, knits, shoes and accessories. Known for non-iron and performance fabrics, signature contrast-trim details and a perfect-fit guarantee, the company sells online and by catalog, backed by human customer service based in Fleetwood, PA. It is majority owned by private equity firm ClearLight Partners and is led by CEO Erica Lee.
Peter Millar is a Raleigh, North Carolina-based luxury lifestyle apparel brand founded in 2001 around a single cashmere sweater. It has grown into a full men's and women's collection spanning tailored clothing, sportswear, resort wear and technical golf apparel, sold through its own retail stores, e-commerce site, and premium wholesale channels such as golf pro shops and department stores. Owned by Swiss luxury group Richemont since 2012, Peter Millar pairs classic American style with performance fabrication and also operates the golf-lifestyle brand G/FORE, which it acquired in 2018.
PVH Corp. is one of the world's largest branded apparel companies, built around two iconic global lifestyle brands, Calvin Klein and TOMMY HILFIGER. Tracing its roots to an 1881 shirtmaking business in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the New York-headquartered company designs, markets and distributes clothing, footwear and accessories in more than 40 countries through wholesale, retail and direct-to-consumer channels. Under CEO Stefan Larsson's PVH+ Plan, the company is concentrating on brand-building, digital and DTC-led growth, generating roughly $8.95 billion in annual revenue with more than 70% coming from outside the United States.
Randa Apparel & Accessories is a privately held, family-run fashion company and the world's largest men's accessories business. Tracing its roots to a 1910 Lower East Side neckwear shop, Randa designs, sources, manufactures and distributes belts, wallets, headwear, gloves, umbrellas, slippers, tailored clothing and sportswear across a portfolio of 30-plus owned and licensed brands - including Levi's, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Columbia, Dickies, Haggar and Totes Isotoner. Operating in roughly 11 countries with about 2,000 employees, the company topped $1 billion in sales and quietly supplies the accessories sold in more than 10,000 stores under names most shoppers recognize but rarely connect to Randa.
Rhone is a Stamford, Connecticut premium performance apparel brand founded in 2014, best known for pioneering men's activewear that bridges the gym, the office and everyday life. Built around proprietary technical fabrics and its signature Commuter collection, Rhone sells direct-to-consumer online and through a growing retail footprint while championing men's mental health through its Mind & Muscle events and partnerships with the NBA and LPGA.
Vuori is a Carlsbad, California-based performance apparel company that blends athletic function with casual style. Founded in 2015 by Joe Kudla, it started as a direct-to-consumer men's activewear brand rooted in the coastal Southern California lifestyle and grew into a broad athleisure label for men and women. Known for soft technical fabrics like its DreamKnit and Ponto lines, Vuori sells online, through its own stores, and via wholesale partners including Nordstrom, REI and Equinox. A 2024 secondary investment led by General Atlantic and Stripes valued the company at $5.5 billion.
Generation Tux is an online suit and tuxedo rental company founded in 2014 by Men's Wearhouse founder George Zimmer. It rents and ships formalwear directly to customers by mail, using a data- and AI-driven fit model to size customers remotely, with free home try-ons, easy returns, and group-coordination tools for wedding parties. After acquiring rival Menguin in 2017, the company expanded from pure e-commerce into physical showrooms and retail partnerships with David's Bridal and Kleinfeld Bridal.
Taelor is an AI-powered menswear rental subscription that pairs machine-curated outfits with human stylists so busy men can dress well without thinking about it. For a flat monthly fee, members take a short style quiz, receive boxes of real clothes to wear for weeks, return what they don't want in a prepaid bag, and buy favorites at a steep discount. Founded in 2021 by Anya Cheng and Phoebe Tan, the company positions itself as the 'Rent the Runway for men' and runs on a circular, lower-waste model.
Anya Cheng is the Founder & CEO of Taelor, an AI-powered men's clothing rental and styling subscription service that raised $5M+ and ranked #1 in U.S. menswear rentals by GQ. A Taiwanese-American first-generation immigrant who spent 15+ years at Target, McDonald's, eBay, and Meta (where she helped launch Facebook Shopping), she pivoted to entrepreneurship to solve a problem she saw everywhere: busy professional men who needed to look sharp but hated shopping. Taelor combines AI trend forecasting with human stylists to deliver curated wardrobes to subscribers, tackling fashion's 30% waste problem along the way. Cheng also teaches at Northwestern's Medill School and mentors at 500 Startups.