The 50 Greatest Menswear Brands of All Time





Written by Jesse Thorn (@jessethorn) and Derek Guy (@dieworkwear)
When Complex asked us to put together a list of the top fifty menswear brands, we were hesitant at first. After all, Put This On is about practical advice and guidelines, not brands. And what the heck is "menswear," anyway? We thought about turning the assignment down.
Then, of course, we changed our minds.
After all, what's more fun than arbitrary ranking? And what a wonderful chance to spend some time with the history of menswear! So we took the gig.
We had to narrow our terms a bit. We decided that for our purposes, "menswear" meant tailored clothing and the accoutrements thereof. So no Levis and no aloha shirts. Magnum PI be damned. We'd include a few token shoemakers, but mostly focus on the clothes.
Once we got there, we had to address the issue of "classic" versus "designer" mens clothes. We decided to split the difference. Our focus would be classic (as it is at Put This On), but we'd include designers who'd influenced the broader movement of style. And we'd consider the past alongside the present, though perhaps with a little bit of bias towards the latter.
Here's our result. Fifty of the greatest menswear brands of all time—ranked on their significance, influence, beauty and quality. With a healthy dollop of the arbitrary. Presenting: The 50 Greatest Menswear Brands of All Time.




50. Nudie Cohn



Hank Williams in a Nudie Cohn suit.












Founder: Nudie Cohn
Year Founded: 1947

Most Western wear is built for work, but not the Western wear of Nudie Cohn. Cohn was a Ukranian tailor who got his start in the 1940s making clothing for country and western singers out of Hollywood. His first customer was Tex Williams, and his business grew into the 1970s. He was known for almost absurdly ornate designs - rhinestones, insane embroidery and wild colors were his hallmarks. He even customized cars, adding longhorn steer horn hood ornaments, silver dollars and embroidered seats. For sheer hutzpah, no one in menswear has ever topped Nudie.

49. Loro Piana



Sergio Loro Piana (left) and Pier Luigi Loro Piana (right), co-CEOs of the Loro Piana Group.












Founder: Loro Piana
Year Founded: 1924

Loro Piana originally began in 1924 as an Italian wool mill, but the family behind the company have been textile traders since 1812. Like Zegna, the company has long moved beyond just textile production, and is now a fully integrated business where they produce a full menswear (and womenswear) line. All aspects of production – textile fabrication, garment production, marketing, and retail is controlled under one house. In the 1970s, they developed Tasmanian wool, which was effectively the world's first branded cloth. Today, they are the single biggest producer of cashmere fabrics.

48. Abercrombie & Fitch



Founders David T. Abercrombie (left) and Ezra H. Fitch (right).












Founder: David T. Abercrombie & Ezra Fitch
Year Founded: 1892

Before Abercrombie & Fitch was a teenybopper's nightmare, it was the greatest sporting goods store in the world. For nearly a hundred years, it sold safari suits, sporting tweeds, walking sticks, elephant guns, canvas tents and other accoutrements of the gentleman adventurer. The brand closed its flagship in 1977, and while it was briefly revived as a catalog and mall operation, it was purchased by The Limited in 1988 and transformed into what it is today. In its heyday, it famously sold to pith helmeted men like Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway, and it helped inspire sellers like the original Banana Republic and J. Peterman.





47. Knize



Since 1858.














Founder: Josef Knize
Year Founded: 1858

Established in 1858 by a Czech tailor, Knize has championed traditional men's clothing for over 150 years. In that time, they've offered ready-to-wear clothing, their own signature fragrance, a line of toiletries, and a world-class level of bespoke tailoring. The last of which is defined by their signature silhouette – three button front, side vents, soft shoulders, and what Alan Flusser once described as a "rounded-off shape." Something similar to Anderson & Sheppard and Caraceni in its emphasis on softness. It's perhaps one of the first cases of a company successfully operating as both a menswear brand and traditional tailoring house.

46. Sulka (Amos Sulka & Co.)



An interior shot of a Sulka store.












Founder: Amos Sulka and Leon Wormser
Year Founded: 1895

"Nothing from Sulka ever goes out of style," wrote the New York Times' Anne-Marie Schiro in 1985, but sadly, Sulka closed its doors in 2001. The brand was originally founded as a shirtmaking operation for husky firefighters and policemen, but became one of the world's most renowned men's brands. Sulka was best known for producing the finest accessories in the world - customers like Henry Ford and Clark Gable wore its neckties. Its smoking jackets and loungewear were also among the best money could buy. Search eBay for Sulka dressing gowns and find that enthusiasts still pay hundreds of dollars for Sulka's silks. There are often rumors that the brand will be revived, and we'd love to see it.

45. Thom Browne



Thom Browne's AW09 collection.












Founder: Thom Browne
Year Founded: 2003

Few designers have changed the course of men's fashion as much as Thom Browne. When Browne won the CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year award in 2006, his aesthetic was widely mocked. His suits were a riff on the company man suits of the early 1960s. They were produced in simple, conservative fabrics and colors (often gray flannel), with narrow lapels and a slim body. Most remarkable, though, were the proportions. Browne's suits still feature comically short bodies and are typically show with absurdly short trousers. People laughed, then and now, but they also took note. Today's suits and pants are dramatically shorter in the body and pant than ever before, a trend which can be traced directly back to Browne, and the tendency towards a revived (now cheeky) men's conservatism has to be attributed in no small part to Browne as well.





44. Fruit of the Loom



A vintage Fruit of the Loom ad from 1957.












Founder: Robert Knight
Year Founded: Founded 1851, Trademark Registered 1871

Simply put, no brand says "underwear" like Fruit of the Loom. We could have put Jockey on this list instead, but I've always liked that fruit logo. Over the years, Fruit of the Loom has had its ups and downs - it was purchased from bankruptcy by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway in 2002, and later acquired the Russel Corporation. It's still one of the strongest brands in menswear.

43. Ascot Chang



The original Ascot Chang team.












Founder: Ascot Chang
Year Founded: 1953

Ascot Chang may not be as storied as Turnbull & Asser and Charvet, but they're exceptional in that they've built a global brand off high-end custom shirtmaking. American and European tourists first came into contact with Ascot Chang in the 1950s, when Mr. Chang had just opened his first shop in Hong Kong. They were so impressed with his work that they helped spread his reputation when they returned to their home countries. Today, the company has fourteen shops throughout the United States and Asia, through which they sell high-quality custom shirts and a full range of ready-to-wear clothing. That's on top of the tours they do throughout the US and Europe, and the budding ready-to-wear label they have for younger customers.

42. Salvatore Ferragamo



From the AW12 collection.












Founder: Salvatore Ferragamo
Year Founded: 1928

Salvatore Ferragamo began as a man. Ferragamo the man moved from Italy to the United States in the teens, and to Southern California shortly after arriving. In Southern California, he cultivated a reputation as shoemaker to the stars and attended the University of Southern California, where he studied anatomy to improve his shoemaking. In the late twenties, he moved back to Italy, to Florence, and began making shoes on a mass scale. By the 1950s, his team of 700 workers was making 350 pairs of shoes a day. When Salvatore died in 1960, he passed the family on to his children, and his family still controls the company today. Ferragamo defined designer shoes for the American consumer, both male and female. Before Ferragamo, the idea of the Italian shoe—stylish, sleek, distinctive—was largely unknown in the United States. Ask an Italian shoemaker (I have) and they'll tell you that Ferragamos have slipped badly in quality over the last twenty years or so, but the legacy remains.





41. Ermenegildo Zegna



An Ermenegildo Zegna ad from 2011.












Founder: Ermenegildo Zegna
Year Founded: 1910

Ermenegildo Zegna is arguably the most successful of the fully-integrated firms in menswear. The company started as a fabric producer in 1910, but when the company's founder, Mr. Zegna, died in 1966, he left the company to his sons. They decided to use the company's reputation to capitalize on the then growing market for high-end Italian suits. By the 1970s, the company developed into a full menswear line, including the production of knitwear, neckties, and sportswear. Today, it controls almost every aspect of production – from working with breeders to ensure its sourcing of high-end raw materials, to the fabrication of textiles, to the designing and production of garments, to the marketing and selling of products both inside its own brand shops and other retail outlets.

40. Kiton



Kiton ad from 2012.












Founder: Ciro Paone
Year Founded: 1968

Walk into a high-end department store in the United States or Europe, and it's almost certain that the finest ready-to-wear clothing they sell is made by Kiton. Kiton's basic suits cost between five and ten thousand dollars at retail, more than most Savile Row bespoke. They're known for exceptional fabrics and copious handwork, and have acquired suppliers like Carlo Barbera mills in order to ensure that they'll always have access to the finest fabrics. They are, simply put, the pinnacle of ready-to-wear tailoring.


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