A Man’s Image on Passyunk Avenue is closing its doors after 60 years in business

The owners of A Man’s Image, the long-beloved menswear shop on Passyunk Avenue, remember the days when the store was so packed that they sometimes threw dress shirts across the room amid the flurry of sales.

It hasn’t been like that for a while.

Younger generations don’t care much about dressing up, and people can buy anything they want online. Over the decades, the avenue around the shop has changed dramatically, the owners said, with restaurants and bars replacing old retail shops. The long tail of COVID-19 tanked business, as well — after the pandemic, customers just didn’t return.

They can’t see a way forward. So after nearly 60 years, A Man’s Image will close its doors at the end of March.

“It’s a dying trade,” said Mario Maldonado, 66, who has worked at the shop for 30 years.

Compared to his co-owners, Bob Taylor, 52, who has worked there for 38 years, and Louis Zulli, 67, who just celebrated his 40th year, Maldonado jokes he’s “the baby.” All three have seen men’s suit styles go out and come back into fashion; they’re once again selling double-breasted jackets and wide-legged pants, just like they did back in the ‘80s.

A Man’s Image never managed to get an online business off the ground.

“Maybe we should have changed more with the times, online, but that’s not how we do things. That’s not how we were trained,” Zulli said. He grew up two blocks away and still lives in the neighborhood.

Each customer who enters the shop is greeted personally, often by first name. The owners have dressed fathers and sons and grandsons, for graduations and weddings and funerals.

Now everything must go, and the fire sale feels almost like a wake, with devoted customers visiting the shop to pay their respects, say goodbye, and stock up on one — or three — leather jackets. Eighty percent of the clientele is African American; many longtime customers are now in the 60s and 70s, still dressed to the nines.

Lou White, 77, dropped in on a recent Thursday to buy new outfits for an upcoming cruise to Bermuda with his family. White, who lives in Delaware, has shopped at A Man’s Image for more than 40 years.

“They take care of you. They don’t let you buy something you don’t look good in,” White said. He used to come once a week when he still worked in Philadelphia; he had nine lockers at the electric company where he worked, filled with clothes.

“That’s nice,” said White’s friend, James Mooty, 81, who has also been a customer for decades, examining a shearling coat White was trying on.

“That’s like the black one that you didn’t get. You want it?” Zulli said. “The one you liked.” He brought the coat to Mooty and helped him try it on.

By the end of their leisurely visit, Mooty and White had each selected half a dozen sweaters and jackets and pants and coats.

“Who wants the bad news first?” Zulli joked as he rang them up, throwing in a few shirts and scarves for free.

The three owners took the store over from its founder, Abe Mandel, when he semiretired in 2016. They kept the sign Mandel displayed outside their previous storefront down the block: “Dr. Abe & Associates Will Cure the Uglies GUARANTEED.”

Mandel, now 83, lives half the year in Florida. When he’s back in New Jersey, he comes into the store, visits with customers, and consults with the owners, whom he refers to as “the boys.” He sold them the business for $1 and gave them half the store inventory, wanting only to maintain a place to go and something to do for himself. Mandel opened his first men’s clothing store at Seventh and Dudley in 1968.

“Believe me, it’s a sad day for myself,” he said. “There’s a little bit of sadness with the guys after so many years.”

When the shop closes, Taylor will work full-time at a vintage toy company he runs on the side; Maldonado will do the same with a side tax business. Zulli isn’t sure what’s next.

While Zulli fitted customers, Michael Patterson, 30, examined the store’s basement. Patterson’s father always shopped at A Man’s Image; his closet is filled with suits, Patterson said. But today Patterson had come for a different purpose.

“You looking at the building?” Zulli asked him after shaking his hand.

“Yeah,” said Patterson, who works in commercial real estate. “We want to put a restaurant in.”

“OK,” Zulli said. “Cool.”

“I can’t believe you guys are closing though,” Patterson said. “I’m very upset.”