Bespoke Fashion buys the Nick Graham brand from Tharanco Group

Bespoke Fashion, the New York luxury menswear company founded by Danielle Mandelbaum Anderman, has purchased the Nick Graham brand from Tharanco Group. Terms were not disclosed. Mandelbaum Anderman said the deal was just finalised and she is already in discussions with Graham himself to be part of the business.

Tharanco acquired a majority stake in NGX LLC, the company holding the Nick Graham trademark, in 2017 from Iconix Brand Group. The firm owns or operates nearly 30 brands including Greg Norman, Dunning, Joseph A, Hi-Tec and Scarlett, and at the time had grand ambitions for growing Nick Graham.

The designer has long been a marketer as much as a clothier. He founded Joe Boxer and built a reputation for stunts: glow-in-the-dark underwear, a fashion show run in 1.2 seconds on a human cannonball, and underwear shot into space on a rocket. Canadian-born, he is known as a jokester.

Why Tharanco let the label go

After the pandemic the brand seemed to lose momentum, and its direction no longer suited Tharanco. Michael Setola, president and chief executive of Tharanco Lifestyles LLC, said the business became very tailored and dress furnishings-driven over the past two years, while his own company is very sportswear-driven.

Setola framed the sale as the right home for the label. He said Bespoke is a natural fit for a multicategory brand like Nick Graham and can give it the design, technical and sourcing attention to allow it to grow.

Under Tharanco the designer had held fashion shows during New York Fashion Week and showed his love of space travel with collections for NASA and with Bill Nye. The brand also embraced augmented reality and blockchain authentication.

Who Bespoke is and what it plans

Bespoke began in 2012 as a high-end neckwear manufacturer. Mandelbaum Anderman's family owned the Superba neckwear company before that. The business has since widened into dress shirts, socks, accessories, sportswear and tailored clothing, which it makes for many of the biggest names and retailers in the country.

Earlier this year, CP Brands Group and Icon Luxury Group, owners of the Thomas Pink brand, brought Bespoke on board as master licensee. The remit was to move Thomas Pink beyond its core dress shirt and tie offering into a full lifestyle collection. Now, she says, Nick Graham is also part of the family.

Mandelbaum Anderman described Nick Graham as a junior Thomas Pink, with fun designs and a position that makes it a great vehicle for young guys. She said she has always been drawn to English-y, quirky, younger brands, and relates this one to Carnaby Street and Savile Row.

The collection is carried at JCPenney and she said that business will be retained. She would love to see it in Belk and Macy's too, and she said plans call for offering the collection online. Dress shirt and tie sets sell for $52 on the Penney's website.

She called the positioning a fashion value play. A customer does not have to pay $1 million to get style, she said, and she sees the pieces as something to keep rather than wear and throw away.

Graham was part of the DNA of the brand, Mandelbaum Anderman said, and the two have a nice relationship she hopes to take advantage of. He did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

The first collection under Bespoke is to be created by the end of next year. Until then the Nick Graham range stays largely as Tharanco left it, with the JCPenney business intact and the online plans still to come.

The sale moves Nick Graham out of a sportswear house and into a business rooted in dress furnishings. Tharanco keeps its focus on the likes of Greg Norman and Hi-Tec, while Bespoke gains a label it can take to department stores and online.

No price for the transaction has been released. The handover is complete, but the first Bespoke-produced collection is a year or more away, and whether Graham steps back into the label remains open. For now the brand is in new hands with its old retail.

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Images: Bespoke Fashion