Custom Tailor Angel Ramos Opens His First N.Y.C. Ready-to-Wear Store – Robb Report

Angel Ramos has had a wild ride. Since bursting onto the menswear scene in 2010 when he was named “America’s Best Dressed Real Man” by Esquire, the former real estate agent turned designer has overseen three iterations of his custom clothing business.

The first, Angel Bespoke, was founded in 2012, and initially headquartered at 130 West 57th Street. After rebranding to 18th Amendment—in deference to its founder’s interest in Prohibition-era style—the operation moved to 13 Christopher Street, where it was eventually renamed Angel Ramos New York.

And now a new chapter for Ramos is beginning, as his business was acquired by fellow N.Y.C. tailor Michael Andrews Bespoke in June. As a result of the acquisition—which consolidates the two makers under a single parent company—Ramos’s West Village atelier has transitioned into “La Bodega,” a street-level store for his ready-to-wear collection. Meanwhile, his bespoke business will move into “The Mezzanine,” a showroom-within-a-showroom opening in January on the second floor of the Michael Andrews Bespoke studio in NoHo.

Amid all those changes in title, ownership, and physical locale, the heart and soul of the business—its style—has remained remarkably consistent. “Our house style is louche,” Ramos tells Robb Report. “Luxurious, nonchalantly opulent, brilliantly undone yet still elegant.”

All descriptors that could apply to Ramos himself, who’s made a habit of wearing drapey, high-waisted trousers with boldly patterned sport coats or smoking jackets with wide shawl lapels, under traditional-length overcoats cut from luxurious fabrics. And as Ramos has learned over the years, it’s also the look that many of his clients aspire to.

“We launched 18th Amendment with the goal of expanding our bespoke business past a single person,” Ramos says of the earlier iteration. “However, we quickly realized that clients were confused by this change and they identified closely with my personal design sensibilities. Without sounding immodest, clients wanted me, not a new brand.”

The “Ramos look” is now accessible to anyone who walks into the doors of 13 Christopher Street, where you’ll discover Angel Ramos New York’s new ready-to-wear line in a space slightly remodeled to display greater inventory. The fall 2023 collection consists of 22 pieces ranging in price from $295 to $2,995, across such categories as suits, jackets, outerwear, formal wear, and knits. Among its standout pieces is a flecked cashmere Donegal jacket available in green, oatmeal, and brown plaid, and a “Flannel Cigar Jacket,” which is made from an exclusive Fox Brothers fabric and inspired by Ramos’s oft-photographed penchant for cigars.

But perhaps no piece from the assortment contains as much Ramos DNA as an alpaca and wool-blend zebra-print overcoat. “Every collection, no matter the season, needs a piece that starts as ‘The psychotic piece only Angel would wear’, but turns into a piece folks really end up loving and buying into,” Ramos says.

Michael Andrews Bespoke, meanwhile, will be more than just a home base for Ramos’s custom clients. Ramos is joining its team as the new design director, a role in which he could be expected to apply his idiosyncratic touch.

“My aesthetic is very specific with a clear point of view, while Michael Andrews Bespoke offers an almost unlimited range of options,” Ramos says when asked about the difference between the two freshly joined operations. “I’m a designer while they are clothiers or stylists. While one isn’t better or worse, the approaches are dramatically different.”

And that these two distinct approaches to custom-made clothing have been conjoined—literally under the same roof—should give all of New York’s clothes horses something to cheer about.