Mr Porter Celebrates American Menswear, Return of CEO Toby Bateman

Toby Bateman is back at Mr Porter and he made the jump across the pond to get reacquainted with key figures in the U.S. menswear industry.

The chief executive officer of the U.K.-based e-tailer hosted a “Celebration of American Menswear” dinner Thursday at the newly opened Wild Cherry on Commerce Street for an array of designers, editors and menswear brand executives. Among those who attended were Todd Snyder, Coach’s Stuart Vevers, Aaron Levine, Josh Peskowitz, Nick Wooster, T Magazine’s David Farber, Esquire’s Nick Sullivan, Men’s Health’s Ted Stafford, Noah’s Estelle Bailey-Babenzien, Throwing Fits’ Lawrence Schlossman and many others.

Bateman said bringing the group together made it feel less like an industry event and more like a dinner with friends. The evening also served to set the stage for what Bateman called Mr Porter 2.0.

After exiting Mr Porter in 2019, Bateman returned in May to the luxury menswear website he founded in 2011. During his first stint he was credited with overseeing the original offering on the site and launching many brands into the digital arena for the first time, including several high-end watch brands. He also launched the company’s private brand, Mr P.

Now, under new owner LuxExperience, the former Mytheresa, Bateman has returned, along with Jeremy Langmead, brand director.

“America is such an important market for us. We’ve got a lot of great American brands who we partner with,” Bateman said. “I just thought it would be appropriate and nice to do a kind of pre-holiday dinner to just get the whole gang back in a room.”

Bateman, who worked in a menswear-buying capacity for Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and House of Fraser earlier in his career, said “one of the special things about the American menswear industry is that it’s such a close-knit and friendly sort of fraternity. The brands and the press and the creative directors and influencers — everyone kind of knows each other.”

But since exiting Mr Porter prior to the pandemic, the industry has changed, he observed, and the site will evolve, too. “A lot has changed in the last five years in the world of menswear, so we’re going to be doing things slightly differently,” Bateman said. “Products and trends have evolved. I think the stereotypes of different menswear tribes have evolved. The way that customers engage with brands and discover brands has evolved. The old rules and codes are gone and men are striving for individuality and want to express their personalities through fashion.”

Menswear has also gotten more casual as guys learned to embrace comfort during the pandemic. Even though most men are back in the office, “the casualization of menswear has certainly continued,” he said.

In addition, age barriers are gone, he believes, and today’s shopper is part of a “hybrid generation.” As an example, he said he would see a group of 50-year-old men in London wearing Aimé Leon Dore, New Balance and other similar brands. “And they look totally fine and comfortable in their surroundings.” And then, in a different part of the city, he’ll see a group of guys in their 20s wearing the same brands and looking equally comfortable. “That’s something I think has evolved over the last five years.”

Ditto for the branding, marketing and storytelling he will be showcasing on the site. “It’s very much video-first so we have to take a different approach.”

He believes that the customers today don’t shop just one brand and are searching for an online alternative. “There is a place in our industry, in the online world, that needs to represent multiple brands. There needs to be a really good multibrand retailer of high-quality men’s fashion, and Mr Porter should be that place. Our customers want someone they can trust, somewhere they can go and see a brand selection made by a group of experts and tastemakers and trust that the edit of those brands is the best.”

At the end of the day, he believes, while men are expressing their individuality, they still want advice. “One of our best-performing pieces of content this year has been, ‘How to Dress in your 40s.’ And I can almost guarantee you we had the same story in 2011 and our customers reacted equally well to it. So for those reasons, I wanted to come back, because I believe in it and want to reenergize and repurpose Mr Porter.”

One thing that will continue, he said, will be Mr Porter’s popular collaborations. Among the deals Bateman negotiated in the past were collections with Raf Simons, Brunello Cucinelli, groups of under-the-radar brands from Los Angeles, the U.K. and Japan, as well as the popular collection created for the Kingsman movies.

“It’s definitely at the forefront of all of our minds — how do we do bigger and better versions of those things in the future,” he said.