workwear
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Anthony DiPaolo and the second life of a work boot
He bought Work 'N Gear in 2002, expanded its ways of reaching customers, and helped turn used boots into donations. Anthony DiPaolo's retail career comes into focus through the things people keep wearing.
Universal Standard made room for the customer fashion left upstairs
Two friends put $300,000 into eight pieces of clothing. Their wager: women wanted better clothes in their own size, rather than another invitation to change their bodies.
West Coast Choppers built a bike shop you could wear
Jesse James made custom motorcycles that few people could buy and a badge almost anyone could wear. The interesting business lives in the distance between the two.
Bordova Turned the Uniform Closet Into a Brand Department - Here’s the Playbook B2B Operators Can Steal
Bordova sells uniforms, gifts and promotional goods. The more interesting product is coordination: one relationship for the many small decisions that make a company look like itself.
Emily Sly
Emily Sly is a Denver-based marketing executive who became Chief Marketing Officer of TRUEWERK, the performance workwear brand, in late 2025. She spent 13 years at Crocs, rising from a regional account services rep to VP of Global Marketing during the brand's global comeback, then led brand and marketing at Funko and headed marketing at PopSockets before joining TRUEWERK. She is known for helping consumer brands articulate why they matter and for translating brand purpose into consistent experiences across every customer touchpoint.
Heather Gruccio
Heather Salvatore Gruccio is Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer for Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Factory, the KnitWell Group brands headquartered at 7 Times Square in New York. A Wake Forest communications graduate, she built her merchandising career over nine years at Coach, sharpened it in mid-luxury at Tory Burch, and joined Ann Taylor in 2016 as Senior Director of Merchandising for non-apparel. She moved up to Vice President of Merchandising in 2017, SVP and GMM in 2020, and was elevated to EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer in 2025 after leading a product-and-perception reset that turned a 70-year-old mall brand into a name fashion press started writing about again. Her thesis is unfussy: women still want to look pulled together, they just want to be comfortable while doing it, and heritage is an asset rather than a liability if you actually know how to cut a jacket.
Larry Nusbaum
Larry Nusbaum is a consumer-products and retail turnaround executive who serves as President and Chief Marketing Officer of Work 'N Gear, the Mid-Atlantic and New England workwear, footwear and healthcare-apparel chain, and as an operating partner at Dark Alpha Capital. Over two decades he has run companies as CEO, CMO and COO across housewares, electronics, personal care, apparel and fitness, most visibly at Ronco, the Ron Popeil gadget brand he bought out of bankruptcy with Marlin Equity Partners in 2007 and steered from a reported $7.5 million annual loss to roughly $4 million in profit on about $30 million of 2009 sales. He has also led Midwest Trading Group, where he acquired the phone-accessory brand TYLT in December 2023, and restructured the artisan-goods company GlobeIn into a subscription model. At Work 'N Gear he took a 25-year-old, roughly $40 million retailer through a 2025 Chapter 11 filing, a DIP financing, a shrink from 38 stores to 26, and a April 2026 asset sale to a family-office-backed operator that repaid the lender in full and set up a relaunch of the e-commerce platform and up to ten stores.
Ann Taylor
Ann Taylor is an American specialty retailer of women's clothing, shoes, and accessories, founded in 1954 and known for polished, tailored wardrobing aimed at professional women. Headquartered in New York's Times Square, the brand operates a network of stores and an e-commerce platform, and sits alongside sister label LOFT under KnitWell Group, a portfolio company of private-equity firm Sycamore Partners.
Ariat International
Ariat International is a Union City, California footwear and apparel company founded in 1993 that applied athletic-shoe technology to riding boots and grew into the world's largest equestrian sports brand. Today it designs performance boots, western wear, workwear and flame-resistant gear for riders, ranchers, tradespeople and outdoor enthusiasts, sold globally through retailers and direct-to-consumer channels.
Brixton
Brixton is a California-based lifestyle apparel and headwear brand founded in a Oceanside garage in 2004. Named after The Clash song 'The Guns of Brixton,' it started with a single vintage-inspired newsboy cap and grew into a full line of hats, clothing and accessories inspired by heritage workwear - from mariners and aviators to cowboys and laborers. Distributed in more than 30 countries and backed by Altamont Capital Partners, Brixton blends classic silhouettes with modern function and a growing commitment to sustainable materials.
Timberland
Timberland is an American outdoor footwear and apparel company best known for its waterproof yellow boot, introduced in 1973. Founded on the shoemaking work of Nathan Swartz and his Abington Shoe Company, the brand grew from rugged workwear into a cultural staple embraced by hip-hop and streetwear before becoming a global lifestyle label. Now a VF Corporation brand headquartered in Stratham, New Hampshire, Timberland sells boots, sneakers, apparel and accessories through retail, e-commerce and direct-to-consumer channels, while pursuing circular design goals through its Timberloop take-back program.
TRUEWERK
Truewerk is a Denver-based, direct-to-consumer performance workwear brand that borrows fabric technology and construction from the outdoor and military apparel industries and applies it to clothing for skilled trade professionals. Founded in 2015 by former homebuilder Brian Ciciora, the company is best known for its temperature-graded WerkPant system (T1, T2, T3) built from 4-way-stretch, water-resistant, abrasion-resistant synthetic blends that outlast and outperform traditional cotton work pants. Sold primarily through its own e-commerce site alongside a growing uniform-services offering, Truewerk has raised roughly $35M and pitches itself as workwear engineered for comfort, mobility, and durability on the jobsite.
Work 'N Gear
Work 'N Gear is a U.S. specialty retailer of workwear, work footwear and healthcare apparel, based in Quincy, Massachusetts. For more than three decades it has outfitted blue-collar and medical workers with trusted brands like Carhartt, Dickies, Timberland PRO and Cherokee across a chain of brick-and-mortar stores in the Northeast and Midwest plus a growing e-commerce and B2B business. The company is also known for its 'Boot Trade' program, which redistributes thousands of pairs of gently used work boots to people in need each winter.
M.M.LaFleur
M.M.LaFleur is a New York-based direct-to-consumer womenswear brand that coined the term 'Power Casual' and built its business around solving a single problem: getting ambitious women dressed for work without wasting their time. Founded in 2013 by Sarah LaFleur, designer Miyako Nakamura, and Narie Foster, the company pairs thoughtfully engineered professional clothing with a free personal-styling service called Bento that curates a box of pieces around each customer. After a near-collapse during the pandemic, the company was rescued by a syndicate of women investors and refocused on the wardrobe needs of a hybrid working world.
Sarah Miyazawa LaFleur
Sarah Miyazawa LaFleur is the founder and CEO of M.M.LaFleur, the New York workwear brand she named after her mother and built to take the guesswork out of getting dressed for professional women. A Harvard graduate who walked away from a private equity job after four months, she launched the company in 2013 with designer Miyako Nakamura and Narie Foster, popularized the curated Bento Box, and later coined the post-pandemic dress code she calls Power Casual.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co. is the San Francisco apparel company that invented the blue jean in 1873 and has spent 170-plus years turning a piece of workwear into a global wardrobe staple. Today it owns the Levi's, Dockers, Beyond Yoga and Denizen brands, sells in more than 110 countries, and is reinventing itself under CEO Michelle Gass as a direct-to-consumer denim lifestyle brand while pushing water-saving manufacturing across its supply chain.