Mitchells, Rubenstein, Boyds and More Put the ‘Special’ in Specialty Store

Walk the aisles at any trade show and it’s clear that there are some retailers that manufacturers are clamoring to lure into their booths.

These sought-after specialty stores have a long history of success, outlasting many of their competitors with a carefully selected assortment of brands and strong relationships with their customers.

Many of these stores shop the Chicago Collective to meet with their current vendors and choose the best assortment for the season while also seeking out some new brands to add a sense of discovery for shoppers visiting their sales floors.

Here, a list of some of the most popular retailers expected to be in Chicago this weekend and what’s on their wish lists.

Boyds

For more than 85 years Boyds has been a fixture in Center City Philadelphia.

The retailer was founded in 1938 by Russian immigrants Alexander, Albert and Ben Gushner, who left their homeland in hopes of a better life in America. They opened Boyds, selling cigars and sundries and eventually men’s shirts, on Market Street. After 55 years, the company expanded beyond its core in menswear to women’s as well.

Today its flagship is located on Chestnut Street in downtown Philadelphia and it also operates a suburban outpost in Wayne, Pa., that opened in 2022. Kent Gushner, Alexander’s grandson, and his sons Alex and Andrew are running the business, representing the fourth generation of the retailing family. Alex focuses on men’s merchandising and Andrew on marketing and branding.

The massive, five-level, 74,000-square-foot flagship — once home to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts — underwent a $10 million renovation in 2018, giving womenswear a higher profile and updating its menswear mix.

This fall, the store will expand into the jewelry business and open a French pastry shop on its mezzanine level, according to Alex Gushner.

As far as merchandising, he said Boyds will also be launching a new opening price point men’s tailored clothing line called Gerald, a nod to his grandfather. It will feature suits, sport coats, dress trousers, outerwear and tuxedos targeted to a younger customer. Suits will start at $795 and will offer a modern, fashionable twist.

“The prices, even before tariffs, have gone up so much,” Alex Gushner said. “This is an opportunity for the Boyds customer who doesn’t want to spend $1,200 on a suit. Gerald will be fun but work-appropriate.”

In Chicago, he said he’s looking forward to seeing Aurelien, a new addition to Boyds for fall, as well as some “staples” such as Autumn Cashmere and others while shopping for new brands to add to the mix.

Giblees

The Danvers, Mass.-based family-owned Giblees Fine Clothing has operated on the North Shore of Boston for more than 75 years, offering one of the largest assortments of men’s designer apparel in all of New England.

The business traces its roots to 1949 when Joseph Gibeley, a Depression-era hat salesman, opened a kiosk and then a store in Salem, Mass. Eventually, he expanded his assortment into scarves and gloves, and then high-end menswear.

His son, Robert, joined the business in 1951, which by then was operating under the name Giblees, a version of their surname that was arguably easier to spell and pronounce. In the 1970s, the retailer opened a second store at the Liberty Tree mall in Danvers, and closed the original Salem location. In 1997, the family made the decision to exit the mall and take a freestanding location in a strip mall in Danvers. It started out at 5,000 square feet and after they bought a building on Route 114 in 2008, expanded to 11,000 square feet.

From a young age, Alan Gibeley was immersed in the family business, even obtaining a retail degree from Syracuse University before joining Giblees full time in 1995.

The business had always been high-end, he said, but in the past 30 years, it has become even more so as a way to differentiate it from its department store competitors, “and be as special as we can.” That includes adding shops for key designer brands including Eton, Canali, Brioni, Isaia, Etro and Jacob Cohen, some of the store’s most-popular vendors.

The store also has a strong business with Heritage Gold from Samuelsohn, Jack Victor, its opening price point suit brand, and sportswear labels 34 Heritage, Peter Millar and Meyer.

Although tailored clothing and furnishings remain a backbone of the business, accounting for 50 percent of sales, sportswear has gained in importance in recent years. “People are not wearing suits every day anymore,” he said, but they still stop in to pick up dresswear for occasions such as weddings and business events. “People want to buy something nice and that works out well for specialty stores,” he said.

Like other independents, Giblees prides itself on being a “friendly, fun store,” with superior customer service, always willing to go that extra yard to keep shoppers happy. “We’ll do anything for our customers,” Gibeley said.

Those customers include executives in the local tech industry, financial industry and lawyers as well as blue-collar guys such as electricians and plumbers who have built large businesses and now need to dress the part.

For its anniversary in May, the retailer completed a renovation of its store that included New York-inspired showcase windows, wood floors and modern lighting. “We gutted the store and redid it for the anniversary,” he said. “We had everything prefabricated in Italy, shipped here and installed — right down to the fixtures. We also added a new cash wrap and bar and opened up the dressing rooms.”

While men’s remains its core, the store has a growing women’s section, overseen by Alan Gibeley’s sister Alison.

In the future, Gibeley said he hopes to continue to grow womenswear while not cutting into the core menswear business as it looks forward to its next 75 years.

Harley’s for Men

Harley Hooper has been in the retail business nearly his whole life.

During college, he worked at a local men’s store and after he graduated, opened Harley’s for Men in Tyler, Texas, in 1979 as a “modern men’s retail shop with classic roots.”

Not much has changed since then. Harley’s still offers a global assortment of sophisticated menswear from brands such as Belvest, Luigi Bianci, Castangia, Corneliani, Sand Clothing and Jack Victor, its opening price point.

“We also have some other newer European lines such as Latorre, a sixth-generation family business in Italy,” he said, as well as Tombolini, both of which he found at the Chicago Collective.

“We’re not trying to be snobs, but we love European clothing,” Hooper said, adding that he even went to Pitti Uomo this past January to “get a broader vision” of the men’s market.

Another top brand of late is Gimo’s outerwear. “It doesn’t get that cold in East Texas, but we sold $60,000 worth of outerwear last year, which was unexpected,” he said.

Hooper said this reflects the store’s willingness to take risks. “We take chances on things you wouldn’t think would sell in this area,” he said. “But our customers also have homes in Colorado and Utah.”

Harley’s has been in its current location for the past 17 years when Hooper “elevated our vision due to what was going on in the city.” He said the community is still “growing in leaps and bounds,” and is home to a very affluent customer with a high education level. There are three hospitals in the area as well as a newly opened medical school. “So that created a great opportunity for a store with better goods,” he said.

Over the past three decades, the assortment has consistently inched up in price, and the results have followed. “We were always a better store, but we’ve been having great results since COVID,” he said.

Suits and sport coats account for 30 percent of overall sales, a number that is even higher when furnishings and accessories are included. “We sell a lot of shirts from Eton and Emanuel Berg, as well as ties and pocket squares,” Hooper said. The store boasts on its website that it hangs more than 300 suits and sport coats in sizes ranging from 36 short to 56 long.

“There are not many clothing stores anymore,” he said, “but when someone walks in here looking for a suit, they don’t usually walk out without one. We’re 100 miles east of Dallas and 200 miles from Houston, so we have to have merchandise in the store.”

Sportswear still accounts for 60 percent of the business, a figure that has remained constant for the past 40 years, he said. Top brands include Stenstroms and Triluxe.

Over the years Harley’s has had locations in other cities including College Station, Texas, home to Texas A&M. That’s where Carson Hooper attended college and was called upon to run the store after its manager died. Harley Hooper said he gave his son the option to either stay in College Station or to join the flagship. He opted for the latter and the decision was made to close the outpost in 2019.

Ditto for the other branch stores, which are no longer operating. “Nothing comes close to Tyler because of the affluence of the people here,” he said.

At the Chicago Collective, both Harley and Carson Hooper plan to shop the show searching for some new brands to add to the mix while visiting with existing vendors.

Harley Hooper said he believes the Chicago Collective is “the best thing that ever happened to retail. I’ve been going to New York City since 1972 but once I went to Chicago, I never looked back.”

With Carson Hooper on board, the business has a bright future, Harley Hooper believes. “He says he’ll carry on the legacy,” Harley Hooper said of his son. “He will focus on the future of the store; he will ensure that our service and passion will continue to be the focus for years to come in the East Texas area.”

J3 Clothing

“We’re just three guys in Cleveland trying to bring fashion to the Midwest.”

That’s how JB Dunn described J3 Clothing, a store in suburban Moreland Hills, Ohio, that he created with Jack Madda and Joe Paster — the three “Js.”

Fifteen years ago, the three local merchants cooked up an idea to leave their current stores and create a new business to “redefine how men in northeast Ohio shop for premium clothing.”

All three had worked at some point for Kilgore Trout, another high-end local retailer, as well as the local Barneys New York and other stores. Combined, they have more than 70 years of experience in menswear retailing and their goal was to continue to sell luxury merchandise “but in a more-casual atmosphere,” Dunn said. “Our store is very modern and airy, and our plan has been working for 15 years.”

When looking for a location, Dunn said they researched where homes that sold for $1 million and more were located in the state of Ohio, and drew a five-mile circle from that point. That’s how they settled on Moreland Hills, which is around 11 miles from the center of Cleveland.

Each of the owners has a specific expertise that has connected with customer. “Jack is the best seller I’ve ever met, Joe is a real numbers-cruncher and I fit somewhere in between,” Dunn said.

And like most specialty stores, customer service is of paramount importance. “Our mantra is: how can we help them, not what can we sell them,” he said. “Nobody feels like they have to buy something. We have incredible repeat business from our base — they feel like family.”

J3 offers a wide range of tailored and casual brands for these shoppers, including Canali, Corneliani and Eleventy, which have shops in the store, along with Autumn Cashmere, Eton, Gimo’s, Hickey Freeman, Meyer, Piacenza, Stenstroms and others. Denim brands are part of the assortment from Brax, Citizens of Humanity, Paige and others, and the store also carries footwear and small leather goods.

Dunn said Canali is the store’s top vendor in terms of units and dollars, Coppley offers a reasonably priced suit alternative, and Meyer pants are also popular.

“We have a great denim department and we can dress him from socks to tuxedos,” Dunn said.

He said sales of tailored clothing have been increasing in recent years as guys shop for events and special occasions. “We have five country clubs in the area,” he said.

Even so, in Chicago, the team will be looking primarily for sportswear, Dunn said, “something new to excite customers coming through the door. We’ve got to keep things fresh.”

Mitchells

It was 1958 when Ed and Norma Mitchell opened a haberdashery in an 800-square-foot former plumbing supply store in Westport, Conn., with “three men’s suits, a coffee pot and a dream,” as the story goes.

Over the years the Mitchell family has systematically built what is arguably the most successful independent multibrand retailer in the U.S.

In March, the Mitchells bought Stanley Korshak, the venerable Dallas-based men’s and women’s store, adding another nameplate to the company that also operates Mitchells and Richards in Connecticut, Marios in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, and Wilkes Bashford in San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif. The company also has a Mitchells store in Huntington, N.Y., that was formerly a Marshs. That business was acquired in 2005 and rebranded in 2015.

All told, the 10 stores have annual sales of over $250 million.

Even as their stable continued to grow over the years, the family handled every acquisition with kid gloves and the utmost respect. Most of the original owners were retained and treated as partners and ambassadors of their respective businesses, and in many cases, the Mitchells also referred to the purchases as mergers rather than sales.

That politeness and thoughtfulness permeates the Mitchell family and spills over to its arsenal of long-time employees.

By the mid-1960s, Ed and Norma Mitchell’s sons, Jack and Bill, joined the family business. Both were masters at developing customer relationships, with Jack Mitchell even penning a book, “Hug Your Customers,” that detailed some of their best practices for obtaining and retaining loyal shoppers.

Today, Jack’s sons, Bob and Russell Mitchell, serve as co-chief executive officers, and a number of other family members are sprinkled throughout the company, including Bob’s son Lyle, who recently joined the family business, focusing on the financial end.

Not surprisingly, the Mitchells’ approach to having family members join is also systematic: anyone hoping to work at a Mitchells-owned store is required to work for another business for at least five years, and perform well there. They’re then brought in for interviews with the company’s board of directors, at which point they’re considered for an open position. “There are clear boundaries,” Bob Mitchell has said of the process.

But non-family members are also given opportunities such as Dan Farrington, the chief men’s merchant, who has been with the company for more than three decades. His wife also works there, as general merchandise manager of jewelry.  

Over the years, the mix at Mitchells has continued to elevate with key brands in men’s and women’s — womenswear is now actually a larger business than men’s for the overall company, accounting for some 56 percent of sales — with Akris, Bottega Veneta, Brioni, Brunello Cucinelli, Kiton, Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, Valentino and Zegna among their most important brands.

At the Chicago show, Farrington said the team will be looking for casualwear, contemporary brands and knitwear. “We’re hoping to walk and see as much as we can and find something new and unexpected. We’re open for anything.”

Looking ahead, Bob Mitchell has said the family is also interested in one day expanding into the lucrative Florida market and has its sights set on the Palm Beach area.

Rubensteins

It was in 2024 that Rubensteins celebrated its centennial.

Over the past 100 years, the New Orleans-based menswear retailer has managed to maintain its core values to deliver quality, service and a unique product assortment while pivoting to keep up with a changing consumer.

The company got its start in 1924 when Morris Rubenstein found the girl of his dreams and wanted to marry her. But her father wouldn’t allow the nuptials until the young man got a job. Although times were tough, Rubenstein used the knowledge he had amassed from the family’s dry goods store on Rampart Street to open a haberdashery on the corner of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, selling clothes to young men. (And yes, he got the girl.)

Morris’ brothers Elkin and Sam soon joined his business and together, they benefited from the growth of the city’s central business district. That came to a halt during the Great Depression when hard times prompted the brothers to ask for a rent reduction, which the landlord agreed to, allowing the business to remain open.

During World War II, they added womenswear to help sustain business. When the war ended, they famously advertised white dress shirts, encouraging the young men reentering the workforce to charge the tops to their Rubensteins credit accounts.

Eventually, they bought the building along with six others on one of the Crescent City’s most famous corners, and expanded the store. Over the years, the family acquired another business, the Madison Shop, opened two All-American Jeans stores and a Rubensteins branch outside the city.

Elkin’s sons, Andre and David, joined the family business after graduating from college, followed by their sons and wives as the family spread out among the branches.

Eventually, all of the branch stores closed and the family exited womenswear, leaving Rubensteins with its flagship on St. Charles and Canal. Although the city was devastated after Hurricane Katrina hit the city in the fall of 2005, the store was mainly spared and managed to reopen less than two months later, and today, the business consists of seven neighboring buildings.

“It’s the heart of New Orleans,” said Kenny Rubenstein, Andre’s son, who has worked for the store for more than 30 years.

While many competitors in town leaned toward Southern traditional brands, Rubensteins offers a range of top Italian brands such as Brioni and Zegna along with Coppley, Munro, Ravazzolo, Stile Latino and Canali. Over the past three years the company has seen an uptick in the sale of made-to-measure and luxury goods, Kenny Rubenstein said. “We’re a dressier town. Some restaurants still require a sport coat for dinner, there are tuxedo events at the zoo — getting dressed up is a badge of honor here.”

Although more than half its sales come from tailored clothing, the store also carries denim and sportswear from Barbour, Billy Reid, Faherty, Paul Smith, Robert Graham and others.

“We still do a big business in suits and sport coats, but the opportunity is capturing more casual business,” he said.

A little over a year ago, according to Kenny Rubenstein, the family got into the hospitality business, building a 45,000-square-foot hotel with 40 rooms on top of the store in what was “mostly unused space.” Called Rubenstein Hotel, the family partnered with the late Joe Jaeger, who owned J Collection Hotels and Development, to redevelop the space, which is managed by a hospitality company.

Although the Rubensteins didn’t have aspirations to become hoteliers, it’s working out well. “We’re really a hospitality company that sells clothes,” he said. “It’s generated a lot of customers for the store and added to the experience, which is what we’re all driven by.”