The Launch

So this is my first blog.  I hear it’s all the rave these days and I got some things to say so figured I’d give it a whirl.  I like fashion, but I am by no means a know it all which has me eager to learn more and more each day.

The Launch

A lot of people ask me; how did you start this company….

Well my beautiful wife and I were shopping at Nordstrom one Spring Saturday afternoon circa 2007.  We had a gift certificate, which typically means I don’t care what I spend because I don’t have to dip into my own pockets. 

A uniquely designed men’s button down shirt caught my left eye and then my right eye.   The designer put a completely contrasting fabric on the interior of the collar and cuffs.  What I didn’t like was the loud design of the rest of the shirt which had embroidery and extravagant stripes,  and was very bold, too bold for my liking.  When I flipped over the price tag and found out it was over $250.00, the gift card went back into my wife’s bag and I patiently waited in the car while my wife shopped and then I began brainstorming.

I thought to myself, how can I work with what I have to create a similar, yet different, and less expensive version of what Nordstrom was offering…

So I went home and took all of the button down shirts out of my closet and laid them on my bed.  I own a lot of solid colored shirts, either twill or oxford, and a few fine patterned shirts.  I then went to a few fabric stores and grabbed about a dozen fabrics that I liked.  I married the fabrics to the shirts until I had about 5 unique, one of a kind designs that I was feeling good about.  Fortunately, I have an extremely talented tailor that I have worked with for years and have built a very good relation with.  She took the time to sew the fabrics onto the shirts and BOOM!

I wore the shirts to work, dinners, parties, bars, the gym (kidding), pretty much everywhere.  Guys (and women) would ask me where I got the shirt.  Nearly everywhere I went, at least one person would ask me where I bought the shirt on my back, strangers and friends alike.  That’s when I knew that I might be onto something. 

Here’s the thing, I like to blaze my own lifestyle.  I believe in separating myself from the crowd, not in a loud obnoxious way, but in a subtle way.  A way in which people with a certain eye for detail will notice and others will not.  I can’t stand it when I arrive somewhere and someone is wearing the exact same gear that I am sporting.  This is the main reason I launched Dressed By Christopher Cuozzo.  I want to provide a way for people to have the ability to design their own custom clothing for well below $100.00

Anyone who knows me will attest, I don’t sit on ideas, I act on them.  It was a February weekend in 2008 and I began calling some website design companies to see how well my idea would do on the World Wide Web before investing in a brick and mortar establishment.  A friend of mine had referred me to a web design company in Boston.  After seven months of working out the logistics and seeing how we could get 20 fabrics to appear on the  collar and cuffs of 5 men’s and 5 women’s button down shirts, we launched on September 21, 2009.

Give us a look at http://www.dressedbycc.com, we currently offer men’s and women’s button down shirts, men’s and women’s polos, men’s and women’s t-shirts, and women’s Polo Dresses.  All products (except t-shirts) allow you to create a sophisticated and distinctive design to add to your life’s style.

Dress well.  Get Dressed.