ARNOLD BRANT SILVERSTONE LEAVES SAMUELSOHN

Arnold Brant Silverstone has left Samuelsohn. He served as the brand’s president and creative director for the past 10 years.

“I made the decision in December: I’d been there for the past 10 years and I’m extremely proud of more than doubling Samuelsohn’s volume and also building and growing the Hickey Freeman brand. But what I’m most proud of is that, after showing retailers Samuelsohn’s fall 2020 line, top merchants have said that it’s the brand’s best collection ever!”

Looking back on the three jobs he’s had in his career—building his family business under the Arnold Brant label and selling it to Oxford Industries, building a strong private label business for Nordstrom as design director, and most recently his 10 years at Samuelsohn—Silverstone remains certain that he wants to stay in the men’s clothing industry.

“I love to create, I love to build businesses and relationships with retailers, and I love the marketing component. I think the problem with many clothing businesses today is that the design people don’t connect with the salespeople who don’t work closely enough with the marketing team. Because I’ve done it all, from shopping the mills for fabric selection to creating market week events, I can help tie it all together.”

Silverstone adds that he’s open to all options: from investing in a startup to creating a luxury division for an already-established brand; he can be reached at absilverstone@aol.com.

LMAG chairman Stephen Granovsky, while acknowledging that he loves Arnie and appreciates the incredible run they had for the first 6-7 years, also speaks of how the men’s clothing business is fundamentally shifting. “If you look at the ratio of custom to off-the-rack, of sportscoats to suits, of structured to soft, it’s clear that we need to expand the parts of the business that are growing. Historically, we’ve done great in our traditional core; we need to invest more in outerwear, sportswear, more casual tailored and custom. So we’re now looking in new directions, which most often benefits from fresh thinking.”