The Elder Statesman is known for its take on absurdly luxurious sweaters that pack a pretty luxurious price along with them, but it's a little more than that according to this Bloomberg profile on ES founder Greg Chait. Basically, it's all about good shit. He compares cashmere to doughnuts: "I would venture to say that 99 percent of people in the world like the taste of doughnuts. You’re a liar if you don’t say that a doughnut tastes good. I mean, it’s probably embedded in our DNA to be able to recognize things like that." Everyone likes doughnuts and everyone likes stuff that is really soft, like cashmere, so I can get down with this admittedly half-backed logic.
This profile is the bomb because it paints Chait as a regular dude. Bloomberg even goes as far as to label him a "bro" that just so happens to make bomb ass sweaters. Granted, they're typically high three figure to mid four figure bomb ass sweaters. Those prices might make you scoff, but the down-home feel of the manufacturing, which is all done in Chait's factory behind his office in Culver City, California, helps justify it with cashmere brought in from Mongolia and Afghanistan that runs about $500 a kilogram. GODDAMN.
Simplicity is back in vogue right now, but The Elder Statesman has been around since 2008, when heritage gear was just getting its footing and all Chait wanted was a nice blanked. That meant he started small, doing limited inventory for the boutiques he sold in rather than full collections. Now, the company offers custom fittings for made-to-order colors and patterns. The limited inventory and customer attention means that if you do buy an Elder Statesman piece, you will probably buy another one in the future. And that's just the beginning. The rest of the profile goes in depth as to how the company turned a profit in just two years, won the 2012 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Prize and opened its first store just last year. Grab a doughnut, take a seat and read the entire thing because it's Friday and it's not like you've got anything else going on.
