Go forward make enjoyable of Tommy Bahama. The CEO is comfortable to affix and he is seemingly not a fan of your shorts

“Typically, you can tell East Coast, West Coast really fast,” Wood informed Fortune in a wide-ranging and reasonably hilarious dialog riddled with nuggets of trend recommendation—and a few of trend’s hottest takes. Right now, he stated, which means recognizing a really particular look.

“The East Coast is going through a massive preppy phase. Ralph Lauren is riding it high, and it comes off very much East Coast.” Wood’s not solely offered on the development himself. “That’s not my favorite phase,” he stated. “I like the floral phase. It’ll come back.”

For the CEO of an organization whose whole model is outlined by its floral part, his feedback is probably not that shocking. After all, it was Wood himself who introduced up how ubiquitous Tommy Bahama shirts are (“whether or not it’s Danny DeVito or you understand, we made it into The Simpsons Movie“) and likewise how his model is the epitome of all shirts of an analogous model whatever the producer.

“There are so many apparel brands out in this world that aren’t known for anything, and we’re known for a loud Hawaiian shirt,” Wood stated. “And you know, it used to be a big part of our business. Now it’s not that big a part of our business. But I don’t care whose shirt it is.”

The shirt model—whether or not it’s “the gang” carrying many in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to it being a memento from the lovelorn in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (“I admire Sir Tommy Bahama an awful lot,” as uttered by the character Aldous Snow, performed by Russell Brand within the movie)—is a testomony to a degree of cultural recognition most attire manufacturers can by no means attain.

It’s recognizable sufficient that writers can drop the title in with out rationalization, and safe sufficient that Wood treats every reference as free publicity reasonably than a risk to the model’s picture. As he put it: “There’s no such factor as unhealthy PR.

“They call it a time bomb shirt, and I’m always like, ‘Yeah, hey, I got the callout,’” he stated. “It’s amazing, the movies, the TV shows, the callouts, but it’s because it’s something that everybody knows, and people love to just kind of pull it into the joke because it makes it, you know, more real.”

The trend map of the United States, in keeping with Doug Wood

The East Coast and West Coast (dubbed “Beast Coast” and “Best Coast,” respectively, for many who have some pores and skin within the sport however in the end don’t speak about a lot else than geographical cultural variations) have by no means agreed on a lot.

New York gave the world Wall Street fits and subway commutes; Los Angeles gave it hoodie-clad tech founders and vehicles for all the pieces. Boston constructed its id on blue-collar grit and a Celtics chip on its shoulder; L.A. constructed Showtime Lakers glamour. New York does deep bagels and bodega espresso; the West Coast invented the entire third-wave, oat-milk-latte pipeline. Even the comedy cut up down coastal traces: SNL’s live-wire New York vitality towards the polished, studio-built sensibility of L.A. sitcoms. And a long time earlier than any of that, the coasts fought their most well-known battle in hip-hop: Bad Boy’s New York grit towards Death Row’s L.A. gloss, a rivalry severe sufficient to finish in tragedy.

It seems the divide runs simply as deep in a a lot smaller resolution: what you throw on earlier than you allow the home. Wood says he can spot the distinction in seconds, from simply the cuts of shorts to the colours individuals combine with out considering twice, and that the geography reveals up on a buyer as clearly because it does anyplace else in American tradition.

In truth, the regional divide reveals up in methods Wood stated the corporate has to actively handle, not simply discover. “I laugh at some of the combinations of colors between shorts and pants that you would never see in California,” he stated. Getting the assortment incorrect in both route is an actual enterprise drawback, he stated, describing his personal response to seeing the incorrect regional combine on a retailer go to: “I’ll walk into a California store and I’ll say, Look, what the hell, I’m not in Florida, this feels like Florida to me.”

Courtesy of Tommy Bahama

Not that Florida model is inherently “wrong” or higher or worse than another—it simply doesn’t belong in California, simply how Tommy Bahama will carry extra acceptable clothes in its East Coast shops over these on the West. Part of this isn’t a Tommy Bahama challenge, however, Wood stated, apparent for all manufacturers as they replenish their bricks and mortars.

“We have brands who are super strong in the Southeast that nobody on the West Coast is going to get caught dead in,” Wood stated, including that sure labels are sturdy in a single area and absent from one other, and it’s apparent the second he spots somebody carrying them misplaced.

“When you see that product, you go, ‘I wonder if she knows how much she’s standing out right now,’” he stated.

The learn isn’t restricted to geography. Wood was requested a couple of golf outing the place a pal’s father confirmed up in a conventional gown code, solely to search out the remainder of the group in quarter-zips and in vests from a model that shall go unnamed however is synonymous with New York’s Wall Street. Wood didn’t dispute that change, including he tracks these modifications intently, all the way down to the particular manufacturers and silhouettes transferring by a area at any given second, whether or not that’s a rustic membership or a neighborhood bar.

“It’s part of what we do,” he stated of watching these shifts unfold, describing it as one thing the corporate has to remain on prime of simply to maintain its personal assortment proper.

‘Don’t put on that’

Wood was comfortable to poke enjoyable at himself and his personal trend sense—or lack thereof—earlier than he met his spouse. At this level within the virtually delirious dialog that had extra quips and one-liners than an Ace Ventura film (itself full with an assortment of Tommy Bahama shirts), Wood was requested about youthful males assembly their girlfriend’s dad and mom for the primary time and carrying their cleanest athleisure polo shirt.

“Oh, God. You know, first of all, that was probably me. Oh, my God,” he stated. “My wife still checks me out about that type of thing.”

But that mistake is because of a information hole, reasonably than a personality flaw.

“I think fashion is something that not everybody is raised with,” he stated. “I deliver up my spouse as a result of she completely needed to prepare me. Thank God she has style, and so I feel that it’s only a matter of individuals not understanding.

“Don’t do that. You know, don’t wear that.” His prescription: time, expertise, or somebody keen to say one thing. “It’s always good to have a friend, or a friend whose mom works in retail, and you can go say, Help me, I’m going on a big date.”

Wood stated some individuals don’t want the assistance.

“There are people out there that look good in everything. They can pull off an Under Armour shirt and make it look fashionable,” he stated. “And then there’s people like me. I better have something that makes me look good, because this isn’t natural. This isn’t going to happen.”

He credited his personal design group with an analogous intuition.

“It’s amazing how they can pull things together and do things you wouldn’t put together yourself, and man, does it work,” he stated. “That’s talent.”

Part of that goes again to the demographic of who purchases Tommy Bahama clothes. He disclosed that denim and bottoms are an enormous chunk of the model’s gross sales (“My third-best item in men’s right now is denim. I sell a ton of denim. Nobody thinks of us as a denim company. You know, 30% of our business is bottoms”). And a part of that can be being keen to snigger on the model of Tommy Bahama the tradition has run with.

He introduced up an outdated inside joke in regards to the firm’s personal males’s swim line: “We sold men’s swim, but our swim never got in the water, so our guy didn’t swim. Our guy just laid around the pool and drank martinis.” He stated that picture, whereas humorous, by no means matched what the model really made.

“Nothing could be further from the truth about men’s sportswear,” he stated. “Now you better have performance something in that product. It better breathe, it better wick.”

Even so, he stated the corporate hasn’t let go of the place it began.

“I’ve got the company started with a men’s floral silk shirt, and I still have a guest who’s just so freaking loyal to that shirt,” Wood stated. “If you’re looking for one, I promise you I’m going to have one, and I promise you it’s going to be the best one you can find.” That loyalty, he stated, is a part of why the model can afford to be in by itself joke. “That relaxed, fun island lifestyle transcends,” he stated. “It’s a state of mind.”