Harry Parnass - one of our fashion advisors

It’s important to bring some fashion industry experience on board to this venture. We’re lucky.  Through our personal network, we’ve got a couple key relationships.   Peerless Clothing is one of the largest production houses of luxury menswear in North America, making ready-to-wear suits and shirts under license from Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and others.  Both the president and vice-president are people we’ve spoken to, who’ve helped to guide Moniker’s style portfolio and business strategy.  The founder and son of Le Chateau have also been generous with their advice and experience.

One of our most hands-on mentors, and part of our advisory team, is Harry Parnass.  Harry is one of the emeritus heroes of North American design.  He studied architecture at Harvard, and in that first career he designed public institutions in Canada and the United States.

In the 1980s, Harry charged into the fashion world.  He established his own label, called Parachute, and his first retail location was a 10,000 ft mega-boutique inside Manhattan’s SoHo.

“The ultimate luxury in Manhattan,” Harry tells me, “is interior space.  So I set up a bleachers where people could just come inside and sit down and enjoy this huge space I had created inside my SoHo store.  It worked like magic.”

Harry’s big design break came just a year later when the chief editors for L’Uomo Vogue (the Italian version of Men’s Vogue) stepped through his door.  Harry recognized the couple on-sight and, dressed in his brashest sportscoat, welcomed them to his store and made the first impression that would set him on the road to success.

“Urban armor.”  That’s how Harry described his clothing line.  His passion was and still is to maximize expression, to leave no opportunity wasted to declare one’s character and personality.  His avant-garde styling attracted notice and took off.  At its height, parachute listed among its clients 40 of the top 50 music acts in America, including Madonna, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, and others — many of whom are still close friends today.

One of the reasons Harry is supporting Moniker is that he sees in Moniker a revenge against the forces that ultimately shoved him out of the business.  The early 90s saw the emergence of mass luxury.  Calvin Klein.  Ralph Lauren.  Armani Exchange.  What had previously been small-volume haute couture went super-scale.  It was an enormously successful strategy, and the losers were the genuine boutique artists, like Harry, whose style innovations ultimately could not compete against multibillion dollar advertising budgets and global sourcing strategies.

And so we’ve found common ground with Harry.  The globalization of luxury brands that pushed Harry out of business is what makes them vulnerable now.  They don’t realize it yet, but those luxury brands have already lost their luster.  Over the next couple of years, as Moniker and others duplicate their global sourcing strategy, and offer customers equal or better craftsmanship at a more intelligent open-source price, we are going to beat them out of their mass position.  We’re going to tarnish those luxury brands and reopen the door for a new generation of boutique artists and empowered individuals.

Thanks, Harry, for putting your confidence in Moniker.