Rush Wilson Jr. may have grown up on a farm in North Carolina, but he always had a flair for fashion.

During high school and college, the founder of Rush Wilson Ltd. got his feet wet working for Belk and specialty stores in the area — and he was hooked. “He liked fashion, he liked clothes and he thought he had a good sense of style and color and knew how to put outfits together,” said his son, Rush Wilson 3rd, who runs the store today. “Even though he lived on a farm, like just about everybody in eastern North Carolina, he liked quality things.”

So after he graduated college in 1950, he approached a local retailer named Homer Wright and offered to partner with him to open and manage a second store. Together they found a spot on the main street in Davidson, N.C., about 20 minutes north of Charlotte, and opened the Wilson and Wright men’s store.

Wilson was determined to make his mark and even the fact that he was about to get married didn’t stop him. As his son recalled: “Dad and mom were married on the 18th of August, a Saturday, and he opened the store on Monday the 20th.”

Not exactly the honeymoon Ruth Wilson might have envisioned, but she was OK with it, her son said. “She was the backbone. Dad was the front guy, and built all the relationships, but mom kept all the books and took care of the children. She was always there.”

Wilson’s first sale was a $2 tie and he soon began selling Harris Tweed sport coats and other outfits to students and professors from Davidson College to wear to school and social events in the area.

Within the first year, Wilson 3rd said, Wright wanted to focus on real estate development and offered to sell his interest in the store to his partner. While it took his father three years to convince the bank that he was creditworthy, he eventually borrowed enough to buy Wright out, at which point he officially renamed the store Rush Wilson Ltd.

Fast forward 75 years and that store continues to thrive under Wilson Jr.’s son and grandson, Jay Wilson. Although it has evolved over the past seven decades, it continues to be a menswear anchor in Greenville, S.C., where it moved in 1965.

Wilson 3rd said that while he had initially considered becoming a dentist — “Freshman chemistry got the best of me,” he said — and spent four years as an officer in the Army after getting an ROTC scholarship, he eventually joined the family business. But it wasn’t an alien place for him.

“I started working in the store when I was 12,” he said. “We were cheap child labor back in the day — you could have your family do all this work — but it built a work ethic. It taught me how to wash the windows, vacuum the floors, clean the restrooms, empty the trash — all those types of little non-crucial jobs. At 15, I started working after school, during spring break, Christmas break and in the summers. And I did the same with Jay when he was 12.”

Wilson Jr. officially retired from the business in 1998 at the age of 71 and passed away in 2009. “But he never really retired,” Wilson 3rd said. “He just played more and more golf. He still got a paycheck.”

Over the years Rush Wilson Ltd. has evolved its mix to remain relevant, with sportswear accounting for a larger percentage of total sales. But the secret sauce of the business has remained the same for all 75 years.

“Like all specialty stores, you build relationships,” he said. “You have repeat business. You build trust. You remember what your customers buy. You remind them what they have in their closet and what they didn’t like the last time they were here, although they had forgotten. Dad was an expert in all those relationships. He had the best memory. He remembered Davidson students, who their parents were, what their dads did. It was amazing. Fortunately, I have that memory too and so does Jay. We remember their names, faces, the things we sell them and their sizes.”

And they’re not afraid to be truthful with customers. “If a guy with a skinny build wants a skinny fit, we give it to him,” Wilson 3rd said. “But if a big guy wants the same look, we tell him, ‘No, you shouldn’t.’ We try to make our customers happy.”

In terms of merchandise, Wilson Jr. embraced the made-to-measure business early on, his son said, so he could service hard-to-fit customers. And in the early days, tailored clothing represented nearly three-quarters of the business. Today, clothing continues to be around half of the business with sportswear and furnishings the remainder, and half of the clothing business is made-to-measure.

“Sportswear has become a much more important thing in the world when lawyers and just about everybody are wearing these performance golf pants and golf shirts,” Wilson 3rd said.

Jay Wilson added: “There are styles that Grandpa would probably never have put in the store. But we stay current with the trends as long as they’re not too far outside our classic American style.”

Among its top brands today are Peter Millar, Johnnie-O, Duckhead and Alan Paine for casualwear; Emanuel Berg, Measure Up and Gitman Brothers for shirts, and Samuelsohn’s Heritage Gold, Oxxford, Jack Victor and Coppley in suits. Alden shoes is also a top performer for the business.

Marketing also has evolved. Rather than print ads, Rush Wilson Ltd. uses social media to connect to customers. Before the pandemic, traffic driving down the street would stop at a light on Main Street, check out the store windows and call to see if the outfits on display were available in their size. So when COVID-19 forced everyone to stay home, the retailer came up with the idea of doing videos instead and posting them on Instagram and Facebook.

“It’s called Window Shopping Wednesday,” said Jay Wilson.

At the same time, Greenville has grown, bringing a lot more customers into the city. “We live in a great community and state, one that is very pro business,” Wilson 3rd said. “We have a beautiful main street, tree lined, wide sideways and a very forward-thinking city council. We have a lot of great hotels, restaurants and a performing arts center. The quality of life here is very good.”

There are also two colleges in town, with Clemson University 30 minutes away. As a result, Jay Wilson said: “With our social media marketing and SEO search criteria, we’re getting a lot of younger guys and the women shopping for their husbands or future husbands.”

In addition, his father added, “We have probably six or seven families in Greenville where we’re serving the fourth generation and those guys are getting married soon and Jay will be serving the fifth generation.”

Like his father, Jay Wilson worked elsewhere before joining the family business full time. “When I got out of college, I called Dad, and we discussed it, and he recommended going and working with somebody else for at least five years to gain experience, and that’s how I got into banking. After about five years, he started inviting me to market and I enjoyed that. The idea was to come back here at some point, and then two-and-a-half years later, he called me and said he had an opportunity, and that was that.”

Jay Wilson said it wasn’t a hard decision to take the plunge. “I’ve always enjoyed clothing and putting great-looking outfits together,” he said. “I also enjoy the relationship business, that’s the main thing I enjoyed at the bank because there are 100 other banks in the area and they all have the same products, so it’s really about the relationships you create.”

That’s why customers in the Greenville area choose to shop at Rush Wilson rather than Belk, Dillard’s, Macy’s or some of the direct sellers such as Tom James that service the city.

Jay Wilson brings a younger perspective to the business, but one that doesn’t stray too far from the company’s core. “He knew what my Dad liked and how he showed clothing and my Dad’s taste, and he understands mine,” said Wilson 3rd, who is 67 years old. “And he’s bringing his tastes and updated ideas and outlook on fashion while still staying in our box and not going too far outside our boundaries.

“The way we style and put together our outfits in the store is different than anybody else. It’s our thumbprint,” he continued. “And I think that will continue on with Jay. He’s 41, so he has another 30 years — and he has two girls. Maybe one of them will want to join the business someday too. I think we have a bright future.”