Ministry of Supply (clothing)

Last updated
Ministry of Supply
TypePrivate
IndustryFashion
Founded Boston, Massachusetts, United States (2012 (2012))
Headquarters
Boston, Massachusetts
,
USA
ProductsClothing and business attire
Website www.ministryofsupply.com

Ministry of Supply is an American men's and women's business wear fashion brand based in Boston. It was launched in 2012 and founded by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology students using some of the same temperature regulating material as NASA astronauts in their clothing. [1]

Contents

The company currently sells the majority of their clothing online and currently has brick and mortar retail locations in Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York City, Santa Monica, Boston, and Chicago. [1]

History

The company is named after the Ministry of Supply, a British government department that was formed in 1939 to coordinate the supply of equipment to all three branches of the armed forces during World War II. [2] After a year of product development and small-scale sales in the spring of 2012, the company decided to conduct a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a synthetic knit-blend dress shirt with heat and moisture management, odor control, and offered a full range of motion. [3] The campaign raised over $400,000. [4]

In June 2013, the company again went to Kickstarter for a campaign to raise funds to produce a dress sock. [5] [6] This campaign raised more than $200,000 for the start up company.

The Ministry of Supply display at the Boston Marathon Expo in April 2015. Ministry Of Supply Boston Marathon Expo.jpg
The Ministry of Supply display at the Boston Marathon Expo in April 2015.

In late September 2013, the company raised $1.1 million in seed round financing from VegasTechFund, SK Ventures, and Red Sox pitcher Craig Breslow. [7] The $50,000 investment from Breslow came after his fiancée bought one of the shirts as a birthday present and he wore the shirt while traveling on the road with the team. [8]

Design

The Ministry of Supply's goal is to use new materials, aerospace, robotic engineering, and thermal analysis to create a new category in the design of better-fitting men's business attire. [9] The company seeks limited beta testing through customer input and feedback with when designing their clothing. Early customers are integrated into the development and design process by inviting them to be part of the research into the final product. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zara (retailer)</span> Spanish multi-national clothing retailer

ZARA is a Spanish multi-national retail clothing chain. It specialises in fast fashion, and sells clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty products and perfumes. The head office is in Arteixo, in A Coruña in Galicia. It is the largest constituent company of the Inditex group. In 2020 it was launching over twenty new product lines per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1990s in fashion</span> Costume and fashion of the 1990s

Fashion in the 1990s was defined by a return to minimalist fashion, in contrast to the more elaborate and flashy trends of the 1980s. One notable shift was the mainstream adoption of tattoos, body piercings aside from ear piercing and, to a much lesser extent, other forms of body modification such as branding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanes</span> American brand of clothing

Hanes and Hanes Her Way is a brand of clothing.

In the clothing industry, fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly, while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of the fast fashion business model.

ModCloth is an American online retailer of indie and vintage-inspired women’s clothing. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles.

Blacksocks is a European sock subscription service and online retailer. For an annual subscription price, customers receive three pairs of socks three times a year. The socks come in a limited variety of sizes and styles, with options such as calf socks, knee socks and silk cashmere socks. The socks are manufactured near Milan, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kickstarter</span> US-based crowdfunding platform

Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of February 2023, Kickstarter has received $7 billion in pledges from 21.7 million backers to fund 233,626 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, board games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Custom Ink</span> American online retail company

Custom Ink is an American online retail company headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia that makes custom clothing and other items such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, bags, and tech accessories.

Mondetta Clothing Inc. is a Canadian leisure and sportswear design and manufacturing company, best known for its world flag-themed apparel. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Mondetta has four main divisions: Mondetta, Mondetta Originals, MPG, and Modern Ambition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MassChallenge</span>

MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tilt.com</span> American crowdfunding company

Founded in 2012, Tilt was a crowdfunding company that allowed for groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. James Beshara and Khaled Hussein launched the platform under the name Crowdtilt in February 2012 out of Y Combinator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marathon Sports (retailer)</span>

Marathon Sports, Inc. is an American chain of sporting goods retailers founded in 1975. It is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, and operates 11 stores in Massachusetts under the Marathon Sports brand, 4 locations in Connecticut operating under the SoundRunner brand and three locations in New Hampshire operating under the Runner's Alley brand. The chain mainly sells running/walking footwear and athletic apparel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonobos (apparel)</span>

Bonobos is an upscale, e-commerce-driven apparel subsidiary of Walmart headquartered in New York City that designs and sells menswear, including suits, trousers, denim, shirts, shorts, swimwear, outerwear, and accessories. The company was founded by Stanford Business School students Andy Dunn and Brian Spaly and launched as an online retailer in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Henrikson</span>

Kevin Henrikson is a San Francisco-based engineer, speaker, and investor. Henrikson has worked for or headed several companies, such as Zimbra, Alpha Brand Media and Acompli.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Lacoste</span> American internet entrepreneur (born 1993)

Jonathan Lacoste is an American internet entrepreneur, co founder of Jebbit Inc currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2011, Lacoste along with classmate and friend Tom Coburn, co-founded Jebbit, an enterprise software company in the mobile marketing and consumer data space. Lacoste currently serves as the company's President and sits on the Board of Directors.

Everlane is an American clothing retailer that sells primarily online. The organization is headquartered in San Francisco, California and also has stores in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Austin, and Palo Alto. The company was founded with the mission of selling clothing with transparent pricing.

Crowd Supply is a crowdfunding platform based in Portland, Oregon. The platform has claimed "over twice the success rate of Kickstarter and Indiegogo", and partners with creators who use it, providing mentorship resembling a business incubator.

Sharpe Suiting is an American designer, producer and manufacturer of garments based in Los Angeles, California. The company was founded in 2013, in Los Angeles, by Leon Elias Wu, who is the current CEO of the company. Sharpe suiting is a public-benefit corporation recognized for gender neutral clothing and genderqueer fashion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020s in fashion</span> Fashion-related events during the 2020s

The fashions of the 2020s represent a departure from 2010s fashion. They have been largely inspired by styles of the early to mid-2000s, late 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, and 1960s. Popular brands in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia during this era include Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Globe International, Vans, Kappa, Tommy Hilfiger, Asics, Ellesse, Ralph Lauren, Forever 21, Playboy, and The North Face.

References

  1. 1 2 Castellanos, Sara (2014-06-04). "High-tech menswear startup Ministry of Supply to launch pop-up store on Newbury Street". Boston Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved 2014-08-26.
  2. Kirsner, Scott (2012-07-29). "High-tech dress shirts being developed by Ministry of Supply". The Boston Globe. BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA PARTNERS, LLC. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  3. Alspach, Kyle (2012-07-09). "Ministry of Supply breaks Kickstarter fashion record with $300K+ raised". Boston Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  4. "Ministry of Supply: The Future of Dress Shirts" . Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  5. Robehmed, Natalie (2013-07-08). "I Wore These Socks For A Week And They Don't Smell". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  6. "ATLAS: Performance Professional Comes to Socks" . Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  7. Empson, Rip (2013-09-26). "After Kickstarter Success, Ministry of Supply Lands $1.1M To Expand Its Tech-Savvy Men's Line". TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  8. Martin, Claire (2013-05-28). "Rolling Up Their Sleeves, as a Team". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
  9. Luna, Taryn (2013-05-04). "MIT student start-ups have their eyes on fashion". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
  10. Castellanos, Sara (2014-06-25). "MIT-born Ministry of Supply asks customers to help with design of new products". Boston Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved 2014-08-26.