This startup began designing wedding tuxes for women–and its revenues sextupled

The bridesmaids are wearing white suits. The bride and groom are wearing tuxedos. The sister is wearing a blue suit. The last six years have seen a lot of things.

The startup was launched in 2016 as a brand called The Groomsman suit. They have seen a surge in demand for women's suits. They spent two years prototyping wedding tuxes and suits for women, and last year took the risk of changing the brand's name to be more gender inclusive. Over the past two years revenues have grown sevenfold to $20 million. It is a sign of how fashion is evolving even in the most traditional of settings.

Foley and Ganz, best friends since fourth grade, came up with the idea for The Groomsman Suit when Foley was preparing for her wedding in 2013. Getting tuxes for the groomsmen was an unpleasant process: Rentals cost upwards of $150 a person, and the suits rarely fit well. Foley, who previously worked as a designer for Under Armor, and Ganz, who worked in an e-commerce startup, felt they had the skills to come up with a better way to suit men up for weddings.

Three years later, The Groomsman Suit was born. With an online, direct-to-consumer model and a streamlined supply chain, the brand was able to sell tuxes and suits for under $200. Rather than using more expensive fabrics like wool or linen, the brand makes it suits out of polyester and other synthetics—the same materials used by brands like Bonobos and Banana Republic. It also keeps a lot of inventory on hand to outfit an entire wedding party quickly and accommodate last minute changes before the big day. “Our value proposition was that for not much more money, someone could own a well-fitting suit,” says Foley.

What they didn’t expect, however, was that women began emailing the brand or reaching out on Instagram asking for suits that would fit them as well. Initially, requests tended to come from the LGBTQ community or non-binary people. Sometimes it was a bride looking for a tux, or an entire bridal party looking for suits. Since the brand didn’t make women’s suits, the team would dress these customers in their men’s suits, tailoring them for a better fit. “They felt uncomfortable going a retail store specializing in menswear,” says Ganz. “Many said they were frustrated by the fact that the industry assumed that everyone on the bride’s side wanted to wear a dress.”

But then, straight women began asking for suits, too. Women in a groom’s party, who sometimes go by ‘groomswomen,’ wanted to wear a suit alongside the other groomsmen. Brides wanted to wear a tux for the rehearsal dinner or the reception—and very occasionally, even for the ceremony, alongside the groom.

This trend marks a departure from mainstream wedding fashion for nearly two centuries. Scholars believe that the white wedding dress first came into fashion in 1840, when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in a white silk and lace dress in a widely publicized wedding. Almost immediately, brides began wearing white dresses, and this is still the norm. In some ways, it’s odd that women’s wedding fashion hasn’t changed more, given how dramatically womenswear has evolved over the past century, including the normalization of women wearing pants. Ganz says that the wedding industry tends to be very slow to change. “Weddings are highly traditional, so they are the last place you see a fashion trend hit,” she says.

The woman's pantsuit has become more popular over the last five years. The suit evolved from military garb of the 17th century to become the businessman's uniform for three centuries. In the 1920s and 1980s, when women were fighting for equality in the workplace, they wore pantsuits to show their strength. In an interesting twist, men have been opting out of suits, preferring to wear more casual clothes to work, and while women's suiting has come back into vogue, thanks to political figures like Hilary Clinton. Argent, M.M. Lafleur, and Dai specialize in tailoring pantsuits to women.

Women's suits are believed to have entered the world of weddings. The founders invited female and non-binary customers to come in to be fitted for suits after setting up a sample room to prototype suits. The proportions of men's suits are too broad in the shoulders and too wide in the arms for women, so they made them smaller on women's suits. Female customers prefer pants that look more like leggings. The women wanted the suits to look similar to the men's version so the entire bridal party looked cohesive. The same materials and colors were used in the women's collection. They started selling pantsuits on their website in the middle of the year.

It quickly became clear that the brand’s name–The Groomsman Suit–didn’t align with their product offering. Changing the name was a risky proposition for a young startup, since it could potentially confuse customers. But they also believed that women’s suiting at weddings was not a passing trend, so last March, they rebranded to become SuitShop. As feared, sales initially went down. The founders think that this is largely because the brand no longer came up as prominently in searches that included the word “groomsman.” But within months, sales began to grow explosively. This was partly because weddings made a comeback after the early months of the pandemic, but it was also because women began to discover the website in their search for wedding suits. Between 2020 and 2022, revenues jumped from $3 million to $20 million.

To keep up with demand, SuitShop has expanded its manufacturing capabilities. When there are supply chain disruptions in one country, the brand is able to quickly shift orders in another country. They have tens of thousands of suits in their New Jersey warehouse ready to ship so that wedding outfits can get to the party quickly.

New suit designs are being created as consumers demand more options. They are finding that many women want suits that are more feminine. Men are requesting more fitted styles. The fit is being worked on by the brand. Many customers want a more androgynous look. The moment we are in is beautiful. People want to express their identity at weddings.