Jimmy Au calls himself an accidental entrepreneur, getting a taste of the men’s suit business in 1959, when as a student at Church College of Hawaii (now BYU-Hawaii), he completed a marketing class assignment that involved writing 10 pages on how to start a business.
A former resident of Hong Kong, Au outlined a plan to take orders for made-to-measure suits that would be sewn up by his father’s tailor in Hong Kong and sold here for $10 apiece.
"My professor was my first customer, and I made $400 with 40 orders, so I told myself I wasn’t going to go back and work at Dole pineapple cannery anymore," he said of his job stacking cans. "I was working my way through college full time and studying full time, and after a year and a half, felt like I had to work so hard for $1 an hour."
By the time he graduated, Au was making more money selling suits than his fellow graduates could expect to make at their first jobs, so the 5-foot-2 entrepreneur kept going, specializing in suits for short men like himself who had trouble finding clothes that fit. Most mainstream designers work with 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-tall models, shortening sleeves and pant legs for smaller sizes without adjusting for fit, meaning knees and elbows fall in the wrong place.
Today, Jimmy Au’s for Men 5’8 and Under is a well-known fixture in Hollywood, where the company’s clientele includes a lengthy roster of diminutive actors, including Martin Sheen, Al Pacino, Mark Wahlberg, Danny DeVito, Joe Pesci, Seth Green, Jason Alexander and David Spade. His suits are also worn by cast members in more than 30 television shows this season, from "True Blood" to "The Office," "30 Rock" and "The Mentalist."
Au had a homecoming in Hawaii last week, appearing at his alma mater in Laie to share his story with students and help them shape their business plans. Au’s business plan required moving from Hawaii, where weather conditions make suits luxuries instead of wardrobe staples. He set his sights first on the shortest group of men he could think of: jockeys.
"They were all together at the racetrack, so it was easy to reach them after the races. Many, after they retired, became trainers and they still needed suits, so I had a built-in group of customers," he said.
OVER TIME, Au developed ready-to-wear suits for the 33 percent of the male population that is 5-foot-8 and shorter, and was able to open four shops in strip malls in Southern California. Sales dropped with the recession of the early 1990s, and the company turned to more product development, addressing demand for more casual pieces, including camp shirts, denim, polos, sport shirts and accessories, and plotting consolidation into one store in Beverly Hills.
"Now one location has more sales than all four stores together," he said. And proximity to celebrities doesn’t hurt, each one a walking advertisement for Au’s fit, which he learned along the way.
For him the idea of dignity is important in addressing clients and delivering garments that add to their stature.
"Many men don’t know they can get a better fit, so they settle for what they can get. When you’re not too tall, your clothes have to be more fitted, and you have to pay more attention to fit than styling."
Even if a man does have a good sense of fit, he said, it’s subject to change with age, and he’s learned how to tailor garments to address bulging bellies, sloping shoulders and shrinking backsides.
"We advise a lot of executives at computer companies because they want to dress casual, but they still want to dress well. Otherwise, how can the president of a company who’s 60 years old compete with some young man who wants to look better?"
On the Net:
» At www.jimmyaus.com, tailors will work with customers via mail and email to establish a perfect fit.
