٭٭٭ No Man Walks Alone - Official Affiliate Thread ٭٭٭ (a.k.a. I shouldn't have slept on it)

[tailoredtech]

Lots of great takes here already, so I'm not sure how much more I can add.

Similar to a lot here, I'm 100% remote now, but still like to get dressed up even if I'm not going to be in any meetings that day. I work at a tech company as an engineer, so usual attire for most has been: t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, and Patagonia puffers. I've always wanted to dress up better and NMWA has provided me some really great pieces that a lot of people comment on when I used to go into the office. I started off as more CM focused, with sport coats and trousers, with the occasional tie. But as trends shifted, and mainly thanks to NMWA, my style shifted as well. I haven't yet made the jump into more unique fits that are outside of NWMA's area of expertise. Most of my closet has been replaced by things I've bought from NMWA, and as it fills, I've found myself buying fewer things but always grab a thing or two every few drops

Some random ramblings on your questions.

What should we stock less of / brand specific feedback?

As much as I love IM and other brands, I'm completely sweater-ed out and don't really feel the need to look at any sweaters unless they're an interesting and unique design (like PIxAC ones you carried 2 seasons ago).

For me, I've never been able to get into Kuon. They have some interesting pieces, but the prices just seem so high for me to justify it. I'm also not really into the tracksuit stuff, which I see more from Kuon.

The new cuts from Rota look amazing, but I don't often wear dress trousers as I WFH, and there are many other options to pick from for trousers that are cheaper (e.g. Stoffa, though their prices have been climbing pretty quickly) that I tend to only seriously look during sales.

Loved the Fujito knit tees but haven't really wanted much outside of that.

Agreed with others on having no more room for big coats, as well as warmer "winters" in the Bay Area has shortened the window in which I can wear big coats.

Agreed with Trayco on SdC. Seen a lot of the same with SdC, crumpled/wrinkled military inspired pieces. One of my first favorite purchase from NMWA was a pair of SdC deep pleated pants that was clean and crisp. The striped tee from SS was very good though.

What should we stock more of?

LEJ is a very unique brand and I'm very enticed by a lot that they do offer. I got the PJs set a while back and while I sold the top since it was a bit too snug, I constantly wear the bottoms. Their fabric options are fantastic.

Christian Kimber stuff is outstanding and would love to see more from him/them.

Maybe not more of but continue with the Document drops!

Monitaly has some very interesting silhouettes and designs that I hope you all continue to stock. I slept on the Submarine pants and regret it.

More IKIJI! Some seriously good stuff from them. The molded polos and the trousers I got this past year have been awesome.

 

[oulipien]

Speaking of Niche, the sizing advice for the slubby handwoven trousers says to take your normal letter size, but the measurements chart says that the waist for an L is 14.8"—is the prose right? the number surely can't be.

 

[Handcuffed]

This is separate from feedback on the store/brands, but I would really love it if folks made it more of a habit to actually label their NMWA-purchased wears when showing fits here.

The bare minimum is the brand name but it'd also be helpful to know the actual item name when it's not super obvious. I find myself going back to the store fairly often when I see items posted on SF (I don't use Instagram for fashion beyond following NMWA and a couple of other makers) and it's frustrating when I see something that looks fantastic and I can't figure out what it is.

 

[d4nimal]

Greg and the gang,

Just my 2c as a non-regular NMWA customer, though I have bought from you guys and love the store and the staff. NMWA is typically a little too high of a price point at retail for what I'm comfortable spending to shop a lot at, but I will usually come and check out things when there is a sale going on as things drop down into my price bracket.

I think someone has probably mentioned that free returns on sale items isn't fair to retailers to bear the cost of, which I completely agree with, but I wouldn't mind even paying return shipping or something on a sale item just to know I could try it and not risk having an item I can't do anything with. It's stopped me in the past from purchasing, and I'd venture to say you may be missing out on a type of "sale shopper" demographic that's too risk-averse to spend money on final sale items.

Also in keeping in the mind of a sale shopper, having the same items that directly compete with a huge operation like Matches/Mr. Porter that can put their stock on 70% discount I can't imagine being viable overall. I'll go out of my way to buy from a local store or a store I like (like NMWA) to support them if the price discrepancies aren't large, especially if they introduced the brand to me or helped with any questions/fit, but at the end of the day if the prices are drastically different there's only so much people are willing to overlook. So maybe if there's a way to have more exclusive collabs, that ensures to some degree that you'll be the only one who has them (at least for a season...).

Just some thoughts, and wishing you all the best in the new year!

PS - I love having shots of clothes on people, or at least on mannequins. Every time I visit a NMWA product page, or product page anywhere really, I always flip through or do a collateral search to see if I can find pics of the item on a person.

 

[breakaway01]

Like someone else who posted this earlier, it's harder for me to pull the trigger early in the season because I don't know what is coming later.

I agree with everyone who has said that shots on people help. There have been a number of items that I have purchased based on how they look when worn, and would not have tried just based on product photos. It also helps to have the model's measurements.

I like the sizing recommendations; they are very helpful.

I personally really dislike returning items, so I often pass on things that I'm not confident will work. Maybe this would never work from a retail/business standpoint, but I wonder if another perk of being an 'early access' customer could be the ability to pay return shipping for, say, up to 5 items that I could try on at home. Yes, there is no reason why I couldn't do this now, but I feel like I'm taking advantage of NMWA's free shipping to do this. To me there is a difference between getting free shipping for something that I think I have a 80%+ chance of keeping and getting free shipping for something that I probably won't end up keeping. Maybe only offer this for items after X weeks of dropping so as not to get in the way of people who want to buy right off the bat. I would definitely also try more final sale items if I could return (at my own cost).

Also, is there a reason why you don't have customer reviews for your products?

 

[dalevy]

I think the issue with final sale has been addressed as not really about the return shipping cost, but just wanting to offload the item at the end of season. If it's a small operation, I can totally understand that they need to move on to the next thing rather than spend time and space restocking it, whether or not they get some money back. Restocking seems like the last thing anyone wants to do.

Re the 70% discount, I guess I'm in a different boat in that I would be incredibly sad if NMWA didn't exist. So I'll buy full price, on sale, return stuff that occasionally doesn't work and maybe I took a risk on, whatever, but won't try to find something elsewhere unless NMWA doesn't have it. I don't actually have any idea what some examples might be. I don't want to know and don't think I'd be willing to spend enough time on that (and even if I could find something, wear it one or two times before the season changes and more likely find that I didn't really want it if I only bought it on deep discount).

Maybe one other thing that may have already been addressed by banning that person that was returning 10k in stuff is for a period of time, limit the number of sizes people can buy for new arrivals. I don't know how that would play out but I've been scooped on a few things that came back in stock later, but I'd gotten something else by that time, which is long in some cases.

 

[d4nimal]

I think the issue with final sale has been addressed as not really about the return shipping cost, but just wanting to offload the item at the end of season. If it's a small operation, I can totally understand that they need to move on to the next thing rather than spend time and space restocking it, whether or not they get some money back. Restocking seems like the last thing anyone wants to do.

Re the 70% discount, I guess I'm in a different boat in that I would be incredibly sad if NMWA didn't exist. So I'll buy full price, on sale, return stuff that occasionally doesn't work and maybe I took a risk on, whatever, but won't try to find something elsewhere unless NMWA doesn't have it. I don't actually have any idea what some examples might be. I don't want to know and don't think I'd be willing to spend enough time on that (and even if I could find something, wear it one or two times before the season changes and more likely find that I didn't really want it if I only bought it on deep discount).

Maybe one other thing that may have already been addressed by banning that person that was returning 10k in stuff is for a period of time, limit the number of sizes people can buy for new arrivals. I don't know how that would play out but I've been scooped on a few things that came back in stock later, but I'd gotten something else by that time, which is long in some cases.

Oh that's interesting, I never thought of that aspect (about the returns and offloading end of season). Thanks for the info. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that I really have not purchased things on sale because of return policies, and it sounds like other people have mentioned that as well. I'm not sure what the inflection point is between the risk of returns and not offloading vs. the risk of not having a purchase at all, but I'm just sharing my own spending habits.

I think it's really cool that you have a strong store loyalty and that price isn't an issue for you, at least not enough to affect where you choose to shop for clothes, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't the case for the majority of customers. Depending on your customer base to pay whatever price no matter if it's 30% of your price somewhere else just isn't realistic (nor is it what I think NMWA wants to do anyway). Most people, myself included, will have some loyalty wiggle room for shops we like and want to support, but unfortunately this does have limits for almost anyone.

 

[dalevy]

ha, sorry @d4nimal if I came off as price isn't an issue because I'm fabulously wealthy. I just don't buy much except from the NMWA nowadays and maybe one other brand. I'm definitely price sensitive, but if its too much I just don't get it, which is also good because I don't have much closet space. Do I want half the overcoats I see? Yes.

 

[rose city mike]

I’ll add one more voice to the larger shoe camp (UK12/US13) though to be fair, it’s hard to find these sizes RTW from a lot of makers/sellers.

 

[d4nimal]

ha, sorry @d4nimal if I came off as price isn't an issue because I'm fabulously wealthy. I just don't buy much except from the NMWA nowadays and maybe one other brand. I'm definitely price sensitive, but if its too much I just don't get it, which is also good because I don't have much closet space. Do I want half the overcoats I see? Yes.

Nah, no worries, there are always aspects and reasons for doing almost anything that aren't obvious at first. Even if you were fabulously wealthy, more power to you. And I feel you on the closet space for sure!

 

[Mariokartfever]

when will you guys carry ed hardy again

 

[gdl203]

Love all the feedback. There’s a lot of perspectives and some (perfectly normal) opposing views, so we couldn’t of course implement all of that. Also, some of the requests are very costly and in a business where we struggle with margins, not fiscally responsible.

I’ll just throw one comment here because of the couple of posts about final sale policy: (1) we have 0 problem selling stuff on sale. If anything, our problem is shipping the mass of orders that come in when we discount stuff; (2) we’re not going to allow returns on final sale for the reasons @dalevy highlighted (we need the space and capital tied into that remaining stock, for the next season); and (3) we actually have multiple promotions that are not end of season sales, on which we allow returns (because there’s still time to turn these items around) so that’s the time for the intersection of sale shoppers and those requiring returns to strike. Even Black Friday isn’t final sale for us.

parentheses closed. Just wanted to clarify this.

 

[rydenfan]

So much great stuff so won’t reiterate anything. But one thing I think you could stock more of are varying easy pants. I feel like I am 100% core consumer for these and would easily own 5-10 pairs from you guys, yet I own zero. It’s a combo of not totally understanding how to size and feeling like sizes I’m interested in sell out super quick. But a comfortable fitting pant that isn’t a sweatpant, I feel like is something that has a lot of universal appeal right now. So, I say more casual but high quality pants

 

[YoungM]

I've enjoyed all the thoughtful discussion of how and why people make purchasing decisions!

I'll mostly ignore the brand by brand stuff, as it's both a matter of taste and already well covered. For hyper specific requests, I love my Farnese belt, and would love to buy more. However, I am incapable of thinking for myself, and have been fully converted to both skinnier belts and bronze hardware. If those options were available on the tubos, I'd probably buy at least two.

More broadly, and with the caveat that my plan this year is to mostly just buy Stoffa and the Anthology, I think that NMWA misses a few opportunities to convert me on purchases. People have talked about the site photography, and I realize it's not a trivial investment, but model pics are extremely helpful for me. That exclusive Grandad coat suffers against on a hanger against a white background, particularly at $1,600. I think using the brand's photography would be a better solution, even though it does hurt the site's visual cohesion.

I think this leads some brands to feel like they lack identity. I believe that blurhms fabrics are nice, and I'm not above "boring" designs (again, I'm mostly going to buy Stoffa this year), but I have no hook. I don't understand the blurhms aesthetic or how it would intersect with my wardrobe enough to consider dropping $865 on a wool jacket.

This feels a little ungrateful because I know there are opportunities - this thread, the IG drops, the lookbook - to see the pieces on the body and in context. I guess I'd just like things a little more front and center?

Still, love the work you guys do! The IGN stuff was insanely cool, and I only held off due to monetary pressures. Hope to see it again this year so I can get a piece.

 

[Trayco]

GRP turtleneck, Ijiki jacket, Monitaly Karate Pants