The aisles at most men’s trade shows are not usually filled with laughter. But that changed last weekend when Alec Baldwin made a surprise appearance at the Chicago Collective to visit the Douglas Hayward booth at the show.
The brand created by the late Savile Row tailor is being introduced to the American market by Arnold Brant Silverstone and his partners. Baldwin is a longtime fan of the line and volunteered to help promote the launch.
Sitting in the Douglas Hayward booth on the second day of the show, Baldwin stopped Louisiana retailer Ted Silver as he strolled by in a sport coat with pink stripes sipping a soda from a pink can.
“Does your soda always match your jacket?” Baldwin asked. Silver just nodded and said he was in menswear so of course it did.
The actor, who was pictured in the center of a promotional piece from the brand wearing a Douglas Hayward tuxedo alongside Steve McQueen, Roger Moore, Clint Eastwood and others, said he was sure the brand would swap him out for whatever celebrity they worked with next. “It’ll be Christian Bale soon,” he said.
Who knows if Bale is a clotheshorse, but Baldwin certainly is. He’s been a fan of the brand since he was in Belfast shooting a movie several years ago.
“It was a little cooler than I thought up there in the spring,” he recalled. “They’ve got one men’s shop and they had this wonderful jacket — it was Douglas Hayward. It was beautiful but it wasn’t my size.” He asked the shop owner if he could get one that would fit but was told the company was most likely out of business.
Baldwin didn’t give up and continued to search for the Douglas Hayward brand owners for months before he finally found the licensee.
“And I said, ‘Fellas, I love it,’” he said, which led to a years-long conversation about “doing something to relaunch a very beautiful high-end suit.”
Baldwin was well acquainted with beautiful high-end…