Male Order: Fashion Delivered Directly to the Modern Man

What’s a style-conscious guy to do when the summer heat is too strong even for his breezy seersucker blazer? Certainly not stride the city streets in search of new apparel. Instead, he should take note of what more and more men are opting for these days: ordering carefully curated packages to their door with the click of a mouse—all in the comfort of central AC. “This is a shift from ‘shopping’ for clothes,” says Marcus Hall, one-third of the team behind 12Fold, a new subscription-based site that delivers pocket squares to your door in eye-popping colors every month. “In our experience, modern guys are informed and open to advice. Forerunners like Trunk Club, Birchbox, Bonobos, and Mr. Porter are proof of wide [web] appeal.”

And indeed, purveyors of to-your-door sartorial packages are just now beginning to gain steam. “We first started seeing the need for a men’s service when our female subscribers expressed that the men in their lives wanted it,” says Birchbox co-CEO and cofounder Katia Beauchamp, who launched Birchbox Man a little over a year ago. “We have definitely seen a trend in the way men purchase grooming and lifestyle products online.” Brian Spaly certainly recognized this when he launched Trunk Club in late 2009—making him the dapper granddad, if you will, of the men’s mail-order phenomenon—replete with a virtual personal stylist who sends customized trunks to your door packed with looks for your next outing. Like the goods? Keep ’em. Send back what you don’t. It’s a win-win formula that Net-a-Porter’s Natalie Massenet picked up on: Mr. Porter, the brother site to her benchmark online operation, was born about a year later.

What’s followed is a wealth of high fashion at all price points for any man with a monitor and even a modicum of interest in looking good, which is, Spaly recognizes, increasingly the case: “We’re in the early innings of a male-apparel revolution in the U.S. where guys are realizing they not only need to dress better, but also want to have a cooler wardrobe. Everyone’s doing it.” Hence the need for ever-more-specialized services such as 12Fold or Jack Foxley, an online-only venture that creates—get this—customized suede, leather, and wax cotton elbow patches for blazers that need a little pick-me-up. It’s one of those delightful details that somehow make all the difference in modern menswear, and the World Wide Web is taking note. Says Spaly: “It’s all pretty exciting to be part of this reawakening.”