Who Inherent Clothier Is

We started Inherent Clothier because not enough people were talking about men’s mental health. There were always posts to share on Instagram, or empty promises of companionship in the hard days. These were easy. Talking about it, opening up about it, that’s the hard part.

But that’s not our fault.

As men, we’ve been taught to ‘man up’ since birth. When we fell as children and had our earliest brushes with pain, we were taught to stand up and shake it off. When we first tasted sadness, so bitter on our tongues, we were taught to swallow it in all of its acidity, digest it despite it being indigestible. When we felt our first heartbreak, we were taught to Scotch tape it back together before revealing a shred of weakness.

This was not our fault.

It wasn’t even the fault of those who taught us these things. After all, they’d been taught the same.

Here at Inherent Clothier, we want to teach new lessons. To give men the resources and strength they need to unlearn these lessons that have buried themselves so deeply in our psyche. We want to start new conversations. Ones that promote healthy ways to let out your pain, your sadness, your heartbreak. To break down the barriers that have, for so long, been built up in our society. As men, we feel pain in its many manifestations. We deserve to be taught that feeling this pain makes us no less a man than swallowing it down does.

That’s what we’re all about here at Inherent Clothier. Here’s why…

Inherent Clothier was inspired by the need for worldwide change, but it started much closer to home.

Our founder, Taylor Draper, was diagnosed with clinical depression at a young age, and has fought for his own mental health his entire life. Flash forward to 2017, where he found himself struggling with self-doubt, weight gain, and facing divorce. After plenty of counseling and self-reflection, he found comfort in the most unexpected place. His wardrobe.

“I realized that caring for myself and my appearance gave me the confidence to fight, helping me build strength to pick up the pieces of a broken marriage and begin to repair.” – Taylor Draper

Being able to spend time on himself, taking pride in his appearance, it gave him the strength to more clearly face (and overcome) the struggles he was dealing with daily. This helped him make even further changes, seeing himself in a new light, he found himself in a better place than he had been in for a very long time. He started to wonder if he was the only one who felt this change in himself, or if there was something to the transformative power of a new wardrobe.

It turned out, there was.

After a lot of research, studies, and personal conversations, he realized that this could become so much more than him finding an inner-strength. This could become a way to share this key to his own confidence with the world. Which is exactly what it became. Inherent Clothier was born. It morphed from our founder discovering his own suit of armor to a passion for helping men around the world do the same. We are here to create modern day suits of armor for men, so that they can build their own sense of self-confidence to the point where they feel strong enough to face any challenge life will throw their way.

Now we get to the fun part of it. At least if you’re into research and studies that have been conducted on this phenomenon of “look good, feel good.” Because there’s plenty of science behind it, and we’ve compiled some of our favorite research.

We could start off with plenty of articles about the external impacts of dressing nicely. It leads to people viewing you as more respectable and self-assured. Leading to professional success and, by extension, personal success.

But we’re not here to teach you how to present yourself to the outside world. We’re here to give YOU the power to create change within yourself. Take, for example, Abraham Rutchick, a psychology professor at California State University, who conducted a study that verified that “putting on formal clothes makes us feel powerful, and that changes the basic way we see the world”. According to an Atlantic article written about the study, “Rutchick and his co-authors found that wearing clothing that’s more formal than usual makes people think more broadly and holistically, rather than narrowly and about fine-grained details.”

This is just one example of a world of research. Another article states that looking good leads to a natural confidence boost, which is what started our whole narrative. This boost of confidence can lead you to ask that person you see in line for coffee for their number, or push yourself to achieve something you might not have thought you could the day before. Or even bravely face your mental health struggles with the knowledge that you aren’t alone in that journey.

One of these pieces of research that hits much closer to home. It directly correlates wearing a suit and increased self-esteem. Making a reference to a quote by Arthur Ashe, a professional tennis player, who said, “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” This is a great way to explain that putting preparation into something as personal as your clothing will make you more prepared (and confident) for the rest of the day. This is a beautiful explanation of something we know to be true.

But it doesn’t end there. In this article NAMI highlights a connection between self-esteem and mental health. Here’s a powerful quote that discusses the cycle of self-esteem and mental health:

“Low self-esteem tends to work in a vicious cycle with other mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. It’s hard to say which comes first, only that the combination is both common and troublesome. Someone who already lives with a mental illness may find that low self-esteem develops due to the social stigma surrounding mental illness.”

Breaking this cycle is tough, but you can do it with a support system and the resources that you need to boost your own self-confidence.

Which brings us full circle.

Here at Inherent Clothier, we don’t want to just be your suit company. We don’t want to just be the place with the nice pocketsquares. Those are great, of course, but we are here for the crucial conversations, the powerful moments when we give people the strength to feel whatever it is they’re feeling. The look on a man’s face when he dons his modern-day suit of armor for the first time and feels the shift within himself.  That is what Inherent Clothier is all about. More than the money, or the sales, we’re here for sustainable change in the world of men’s mental health.