What Do Menswear Buyers Actually Do at Paris Fashion Week?
Paris Fashion Week certainly looks like a spectacle. Its calendar is dominated by global luxury brands staging celebrity-studded runway shows, each trying to make the biggest splash — literally, in the case of Pharrell's latest Louis Vuitton presentation. Beneath all that, however, is something far less flashier but far more exciting: A trade show spread across the city, with Le Marais as its center.
Who are the unsung stars of market week, as this hidden happening is called? Buyers, the people who select the clothes sold at stores across the globe. “Without them,” says Luke Peace of Veilance, Arc’teryx’s luxury sub-line, “none of this would make any sense.” They’re the reason hundreds of designers travel to Paris each season to present their new collections.
Yet buyers themselves remain largely invisible and their modus operandi obscure. That’s partly unavoidable. All the appointments on their packed schedules take place behind closed doors. But it’s partly deliberate, too. Talk to buyers long enough and you’ll notice they choose their words carefully. They’ll happily discuss where menswear is going next, but become far more guarded, almost secretive, when the conversation turns to the daily realities of their job: Why they buy what they buy, how they arrive at their decisions or how they keep within budget.
“I was actually a bit hesitant to accept your invitation,” Hampus von Hauswolff tells me after I’ve accompanied him and his colleague Eric Nordstedt for an entire day. von Hauswolff and Nordstedt are buyers at Stockholm-based Nitty Gritty, one of the world’s coolest stores, carrying A.Presse, Evan Kinori, Salon C. Lundman and around 80 other tasteful labels. “We’re not used to having someone else around and we didn’t know if we’d be able to talk as freely as we normally do,” Nordstedt adds. At times, they switched to Swedish, but otherwise they granted me a rare glimpse into the day-to-day life of a buyer during fashion week.
von Hauswolff, who became Nitty Gritty’s head buyer in 2022, doesn’t use a map on his phone as we move between showrooms. He knows this 1.5-square-mile neighborhood like the back of his hand and, he assures me, never gets lost. “It only happened once, but that was because the brand moved locations at the last minute.” There are seven appointments planned for the day, adding up to roughly 25,000 steps taken in 100-degree heat.
Nordstedt’s outfit: vintage Polo Ralph Lauren shorts, linen Evan Kinori shirt and T-shirt and Nike running shoes. (“With my age, I really need these,” he jokes). von Hauswolff wears a pair of distressed COMME des GARÇONS HOMME trousers, a Comoli T-shirt, Chamula slippers, a MAN-TLE cap and the sweat towel Oliver Church gave him earlier in the week, draped around his neck.
We’re visiting two labels von Hauswolff and Nordstedt don’t work with (yet) — Khakis from South Korea and London-based specialty suitmaker Lea Boberg — and five others with whom they’ve built long-standing relationships. In the case of Engineered Garments, whose founder Daiki Suzuki welcomes them with a hug, that relationship dates back more than twenty years.
He doesn’t know the exact number, but in the weeks leading up to Paris, von Hauswolff received several dozen showroom invitations. Since he’s only here for a couple of days, he has to be extremely selective when it comes to visiting new labels. “The problem nowadays,” he says, “is that there are simply too many good ones out there.” He and Nordstedt each keep a running list of labels to follow, often discovered on Instagram, which they discuss throughout the year. For them a first visit is about seeing whether the clothes are as good in real life as they are on screen.
A second is about finding out whether the label, as von Hauswolff puts it, “is still relevant next season or was just having a moment.” His life, he says, is a constant balancing act: “It’s easy to get excited about new designers, and it can be tempting to get on board early, but then again you know you won’t be swapping out the whole store, unless you want to lose trust.”
During our morning appointment at Niceness, the Tokyo label they recently started carrying, it quickly becomes clear just how instinctively von Hauswolff and Nordstedt work. After a rundown of the collection — around 150 pieces inspired by the 1950s and ‘60s, displayed in a large, open space — they walk through it once more together. But, for most of the day, they don’t talk much to each other. Thinking seems to occur when eyes and hands meet cloth. They begin with fabric and color, then look for stand-out details, like a hidden pocket, buckle back or hand-stitched buttonhole. von Hauswolff has a thing for zippers, pulling it up and down a few times before he takes an item he likes from a rack. Nordstedt, who’s often sample size, tries on some of their picks while von Hauswolff snaps photos on his phone and converts prices from yen to Swedish kronor.
Less than 45 minutes later, we’re outside again. Without much discussion, von Hauswolff and Nordstedt have made their selection of eight pieces, including a beautiful plaid shirt and heavily distressed canvas shorts. “There’s never much time,” von Hauswolff says. “That’s why we have to narrow it down right away.” Luckily for them, he adds, “70 or 75 percent is done on gut feeling.” Most of the rest will happen back home in the weeks that follow, when they place their orders using line sheets, price calculations and sale statistics.
Our next stop is Unlikely Dry Goods, the Tokyo-based label founded by Shinsuke Nakada, former creative director of BEAMS, known for its playful take on American classics. Here, around six picks are made in less than 15 minutes. The rest of the appointment is spent catching up and exchanging thoughts on the Japan-Sweden World Cup match. At one point, Nakada pulls out his phone to show an eBay listing for a $5,000 Levi’s jacket from the 1950s that inspired this season’s Western jacket. Moments like these matter. “You can tell right away they’re genuinely excited,” von Hauswolff says. “They care. They’re invested. Not all brands have that. Some just want to make money. When you’re a buyer long enough, you feel the difference immediately.”
That same sense of excitement is evident at Lea Boberg, who makes Savile Row-meets-Margiela tailoring by hand in her London studio. She presents around a dozen core styles, including her signature raw-edged RNL blazer, alongside a selection of fabric swatches. Buyers can pick a style and have it made in a fabric exclusive to their store. “It’s definitely a plus for us to know we’ll get our own unique selection,” von Hauswolff says. Not that he’s particularly concerned about competing with other stores in Boberg’s case. “Many of them, like Chris from Ven.Space or Saager from Neighbour, are friends of ours. The fact that they’re selling it actually validates it for our customers and helps them understand the clothes better.”
Soon after fashion week ends, von Hauswolff and Nordstedt will begin placing their orders. “Some labels have deadlines even before we’re back home, which can be a bit annoying; others allow for a couple of weeks,” von Hauswolff explains. Asked if he would prefer a longer window, he shakes his head. “Then you begin to overthink rather than trusting your gut feeling.” With orders worth a small fortune — exact numbers are “business secret” — this may sound absurd. Follow von Hauswolff and Nordstedt for a day and you realize it isn’t. Like the designers whose clothes they buy, their instincts are, in fact, trained judgment, honed over thousands of hours spent handling clothes, touching fabrics and talking to customers.
The grounded, calm way they apply that judgment in blistering-hot Paris showrooms doesn’t go unnoticed by the people they work with season after season. “Honestly, few buyers are like them,” Peace tells me as von Hauswolff and Nordstedt make their selection at Veilance. “They’re very kind, respectful and, unlike some others, have very little ego.”
Highsnobiety has affiliate marketing partnerships, which means we may receive a commission from your purchase. Want to shop the products our editors actually love? Visit our SHOPPER page and subscribe to the newsletter for recs on all things fashion, footwear, and beauty.
