The athleisure brand with Philly roots your Eagles are wearing off the field | Elizabeth Wellington
Nick Foles, Carson Wentz and Nate Sudfeld are all fans.
It’s a sure fashion bet that some of your favorite Eagles — including quarterback Nick Foles, tight end Zack Ertz, and safety Chris Maragos — will land comfortably this weekend in New Orleans wearing joggers and hoodies courtesy of Swet Tailor, an emerging athleisure brand with Philadelphia roots.
Adam Bolden, who grew up in Richboro, is CEO of the California company. When he took over in 2015, Swet (pronounced sweat) Tailor specialized in one item: a pair of five-pocket sweatpants that easily passed for skinny jeans in the same way stretchy ponte pants double as dressy women’s slacks. These days, however, Swet Tailor has a full-fledged menswear collection that includes flat-front pants, dress shirts, long-sleeve T’s, and blazers.
Since Bolden has been at the helm, Swet Tailor has made major headway in the fickle world of retail ― it is available in 50 specialty retail stores nationwide ― but this NFL season, it’s been blowing up, largely because it’s found a measure of sartorial favor with our Birds.
“I actually get excited knowing how comfortable I’ll be wearing Swet Tailor,” texted Spencer Phillips, assistant quarterbacks coach. “Our job requires an average 16-18-hour workdays — being comfortable and looking professional is essential. I have a hard time wearing anything else.”
How did Swet Tailor become the in thing with the Iggles?
In February, Bolden got wind through his wife, Jayme, once an insider on New York’s public relations scene, that Foles' people were trying to get their hands on Kenneth Cole duds for Foles' appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
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Bolden added his collection to the mix. “I sent every single color of every sweat, hoodie, shorts, polos … I mean everything,” Bolden said. A lifelong Eagles fan, Bolden also included a handwritten note expressing his undying love for the team. He told Foles how he wore the quarterback’s University of Arizona football jersey to last year’s Super Bowl because Foles' alma mater is his, too. In other words, he laid it on thick.
A week passed. Foles appeared on the Kimmel show rocking Kenneth Cole. Another week went by. One morning, Bolden found an email in his inbox. The sender was St. Nick himself.
“He responded to all of my points in the email and told me how much he loved the brand,” Bolden said.
The two started a bro-ship via text and it wasn’t long before Foles' teammates, including quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Nate Sudfeld, and other NFL players began asking for pieces, too.
The nice words (and Instagram posts) from the Super Bowl champs helped Bolden and his business partner, apparel industry veteran David Kranz, raise $1.5 million in a second round of capital funding in November. And get this other Philly tie: $500,000 of that money was invested by Main Line clothing tycoon (and ex-hubby of Tory Burch) Chris Burch of the venture capital firm Burch Creative Capital. Another notable investor is former Philadelphia Eagle Mark Sanchez, now a quarterback for the Washington Redskins.
Swet Tailor ranges in price from $44 for a T-shirt to $199 for a blazer. The bulk of the collection — part made in the USA, part made in China — is fashioned from Suprese, special blend of cotton and spandex used exclusively for the company.
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This year, Bolden said, he will launch a polyester/spandex blend Swet Tailor suit. (Word on the street is that Foles is already a fan.) And, Bolden said, he is in the early stages of developing a line of comfy sweats to fit bigger guys that will be cleverly named High & Mighty. And because so many of Bolden’s core customers are football players, that will surely be a good look.