How State & Liberty and James van Riemsdyk are changing the NHL fashion game

Eight years ago, State & Liberty was selling dress shirts out of the trunk of a car. Now, it outfits more than 60% of the NHL, including almost all of James van Riemsdyk’s Flyers teammates.

Lee Moffie, State & Liberty’s founder, grew up in the same hockey circuit as van Riemsdyk. With Moffie playing in Connecticut and van Riemsdyk playing in New Jersey, the two knew of each other growing up. Eventually, they both signed with the same agency and became friendly.

While van Riemsdyk’s NHL career took off, the younger Moffie played four years at the University of Michigan before trying to establish a professional career. As Moffie bounced between the AHL and ECHL and van Riemsdyk moved from the Flyers to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the two stayed in touch.

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In 2014, Moffie checked in with more than just a hockey update. He had an idea he wanted to share. Inspired by his experiences trying to find suits for away games, Moffie wanted to create dress clothes better suited for athletes. He’d always had trouble finding suits that fit him off the rack and was getting frustrated with having to take them to a tailor. Even worse, he and some of his teammates were accidentally destroying suits that didn’t fit right.

“Two main things that stick out to me are guys just blowing right through the seat of their pants on road trips, like, all the time,” Moffie said. “And then one thing I didn’t even know about is a lot of finance guys that wear a dress shirt at a desk blow right through the elbows of their dress shirts.”

Inspired by Lululemon and Hugo Boss, Moffie found a way to create a more comfortable, better-fitted shirt. Van Riemsdyk was intrigued. He, too, knew the horror stories that came with ill-fitted suits. So many fellow athletes had trouble with dress shirts (normal shirts were too narrow in the shoulders, wider shirts were too boxy in the waist) and the tighter styles of dress pants.

Luckily for Moffie, his idea came at the perfect stage in van Riemsdyk’s life. In his sixth NHL season and his third season as a Maple Leaf, van Riemsdyk was starting to invest in companies and brands. Pushed by some of his fashionable Maple Leaf teammates like Joffrey Lupul and Dion Phaneuf, van Riemsdyk found his fashion sense was also starting to evolve.

“I went there having maybe two or three suits,” said van Riemsdyk, now 33. “When I left Toronto ... between all the new ones from now, all the different colors I have from here, I probably have maybe 50 or so. So [I’ve] definitely gotten super into it.”

Van Riemsdyk wasn’t just sold on the product. He also thought Moffie would be a good person to support because he trusted his work ethic. Moffie proved him right.

For the first few years, Moffie would pack up his dress shirts and drive to hotels where hockey teams were staying. He’d reach out to players he knew to ask for a connection (van Riemsdyk remembers those calls), and then he’d work out of the lobby. Since he was based in Detroit, he often went down to the Red Wings facilities.

“That was just a really fun, crazy time,” Moffie said.

Moffie estimates he sold tens of thousands of shirts out of his trunk before finding a storefront. The local one is at 1517 Walnut St. in Center City.

Meanwhile, van Riemsdyk quietly became one of State & Liberty’s biggest assets. As an investor, he financially backed the company, but he did so much more than give money — he spread the word. He wore its suits and encouraged others to do so as well. And people listened.

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“Whenever he’s on a team, that team becomes one of the best ‘State & Liberty teams,’ if you will,” Moffie said.

Moffie has had other friends, like Detroit Red Wings star Dylan Larkin, as well as players he doesn’t even know that well, like the recently retired Ryan Getzlaf, promote the brand, helping it reach the point where every team has someone who wears State & Liberty clothes. However, Moffie and his business partner, Steven Fisher, knew they had to appeal to more than just hockey players.

Word of mouth as well as advertising the athletic fit has helped State & Liberty expand into the NFL, MLB, and MLS, with the NBA slowly following. But they needed to reach beyond the athletic world. They got a boost from an unexpected place — the pandemic. With everyone working at home, people started to place an emphasis on comfort, and when they returned to the office, they didn’t want to let that go.

Comfort is State & Liberty’s No. 1 goal. The company prioritizes it to the point that it often limited the options it was able to offer because it is so picky about fabric quality, Moffie said.

Slowly and intentionally, State & Liberty expanded its offerings. It branched out from dress shirts to polos to slacks to suits. Now, it’s offering tuxedos. It also has gone beyond the basic blues, blacks, and whites with an array of colors and patterns. There are enough choices now that teammates don’t have to worry as much about showing up in the same thing, van Riemsdyk said.

State & Liberty’s push into color reflects a trend throughout the sports world as athletes have started to focus on their personal brands. Game-day outfits are posted on both personal and team social media accounts and draft suits are custom-made well ahead of the day itself.

The NHL has long trailed behind the sports fashion movement, but it’s making its way there. Stars, both young and old, like Toronto’s Auston Matthews and Boston’s David Pastrňák, have been challenging the norm of basic suits in blacks and blues, introducing colors, patterns, and streetwear styles.

“[Now] you notice some cool stuff that people will try and wear and push the envelope a little bit,” van Riemsdyk said. “So it’s fun to see. I think it’s good for sports. … It brings attention to the game. It’s supposed to be entertainment; it’s supposed to be fun, so I think it’s fun when guys can show some personality.”

It helps that one of the league’s favorite outfitters is making it easier by presenting options and making them comfortable to wear. Joel Farabee, one of van Riemsdyk’s younger teammates, raved about how the dress pants feel like sweats.

Van Riemsdyk, who has 15 points in 18 games this season, is by far the most adventurous Flyer, although he’s been pushing his teammates further into the fashion world. He helps by providing a “JVR discount” for fellow Flyers and friends. He also put up State & Liberty suits “on the board” as an incentive before a game one year and ended up outfitting the whole team in black suits with a Flyers soccer-style patch for the 2019 Stadium Series game at Lincoln Financial Field.

Once State & Liberty started offering orange, van Riemsdyk ordered an orange suit to recognize the Flyers’ primary color. And he keeps getting more adventurous. After initially sticking to shades of blue, van Riemsdyk now wears maroon, orange — and green velvet.

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State & Liberty decided to venture into tuxedos and into velvet. As soon as van Riemsdyk saw there was green, he thought “That has my name written all over it.”

On opening night, van Riemsdyk walked into the season with style, rocking his boldest outfit yet — a green velvet tuxedo with a black dress shirt and black Gucci tie. The outfit he wore with pride is a sign of how far both his fashion sense and State & Liberty’s offerings have come. Van Riemsdyk is no longer rotating two suits, and Moffie is offering an array of outfits through gleaming store windows rather than selling white shirts out of the trunk of his car.