“Come to my house, measure me for a suit and I’ll be your first customer.”
Those are the words that launched what has become the fastest-growing custom suit retailer in the country.
It was the spring of 2012 and budding entrepreneurs Daniel McConkie, Hayden Bryant, Cole Harris and Daniel’s older brother Michael were stuck. They’d settled on the business they wanted to launch. They would sell custom suits to a public still unaware how much they needed them.
The idea was an outgrowth from the experiences Daniel, Hayden and Cole had a couple of years earlier when they were Latter-day Saint missionaries in Thailand. Like all new-coming missionaries from America, one of the first things they did when they got off the plane in Bangkok was go to a tailor shop, of which there were multitudes, and get fitted for a custom suit.
They were treated like royalty and, presto, a day later they had a fancy, one-of-a-kind suit with a colored lining of their choosing and their name stenciled on the inside.
Their business plan was to import custom-made suits to America.
But they were stumped on how to get started.
Then one day, after a business class at BYU, Daniel decided to pose that question to his mentor, Scott Frazier, who responded with the quote that started this column.
You can gnaw the idea to death, was Frazier’s advice in essence, or you can do something. Try something and see what happens. Get going and figure it out.
“That’s when we realized we didn’t even have a tape measure,” remembers Daniel.
So, as instructed, ideation turned into action.
Daniel and Hayden scrounged up enough money to fly back to Thailand. Armed with their fluency in the language, they stayed with friends from their missionary days who had contacts in the textile world. They took videos of tailors at work in their shops. They packed their bags with fabric samples they were given by Bangkok tailors who were eager to partner with them in their new venture. They bought a tape measure.
Hayden and Daniel flew home ready to measure and sell Thai suits to, as Daniel puts it, “family, friends and fools — whoever would give us money.”
They named their company H.M. Cole — for Hayden, McConkie and Cole — and opened a small flagship retail store in downtown Salt Lake City to anchor the business they began setting up. In time, they would establish a wholesale business to supply their product to menswear retailers around the world.
Then they built a factory in the northeast part of Thailand.
It took a few years for that to happen. But early on, the partners realized it was going to be difficult to maintain quality and consistency by working with so many independent suitmakers.
They also realized that, first, the Thai suit industry is centered in Bangkok, where, as Daniel explains, “it is built on the backs of tourists,” and, second, the bulk of the labor in the ubiquitous tailor shops comes from outside the city.
“The majority of the people who work in these workshops learn their trade in the northeast, where the tailoring tradition and skill set really exists,” says Daniel, “then they move down to Bangkok where the industry is. These migrant laborers will work for eight or nine months out of the year, while their kids are at home with grandma and grandpa, so they can support their families.”
Locating the H.M. Cole factory, called MSS Apparel, in the city of Ubon allowed these skilled workers to remain home.
The factory employs 350 people, providing a major economic boost for the area. That’s in addition to the 45 people H.M. Cole employs in the U.S.
“We love what we do and love the people that work with us,” says Daniel. “It’s a blessing to be able to have a positive impact on the lives of those we support.”
So far, the business has not only been able to survive in a world where suit-wearing is becoming less prevalent, but actually take advantage of the new culture.
“We have been fortunate for a couple of reasons,” says Daniel. “Number 1, we’re a luxury product. So where today on a macro scale people are not buying as many suits as they used to, their mindset is if they’re going to get one suit only, let’s make it a great quality suit, made specifically for me.
“And number 2, everything we do is custom, so as styles change, we can adapt to the newest styles, and we’re not sitting on old inventory. We have been able to gain market share because we offer something unique in the suiting world. That’s our niche. So in the United States, at least today, we’re the fastest-growing custom suit retailer.”
In addition to its wholesale side, with locations internationally, H.M. Cole now has 15 retail stores in the U.S. Between wholesale and retail, they sell 100 suits a day (retail prices start at $999), along with wedding suits, custom tuxedos, custom knitwear, custom shirts, custom overcoats, custom trousers and ties.
By the way, in case you’re wondering, Daniel never did take that business mentor at BYU up on his offer to buy a suit from the young entrepreneurs. Acting on Scott Frazier’s advice to just get started, the boys got too busy too fast to circle back.
“He runs a VC firm in Alpine called Frazier VC,” says Daniel. “I was just a student, so I highly doubt he would even remember my name. But I won’t forget him. His advice changed my life.”
