When quarterback Brock Osweiler wanted to give the 22 guys on the Houston Texans offensive line custom suits as a dual Christmas gift and thanks for protecting him during the 2016 season, Paige Hutt was unfazed. It was a large order for the stylist and custom clothier, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to outfit a bunch of really big and tall men.
She’d already done four similar projects for other players, including former Broncos punter Britton Colquitt and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith.
Requests like this come with the territory. Hutt has been making custom suits for seven years and currently works out of Windsor for b.spoke, a California-based clothier. Although she counts a couple of businessmen on her roster, her clientele is mostly professional athletes from a range of sports.
“It’s not something I was specifically seeking out,” Hutt said of her niche market. “It just kind of worked out that way, but it’s a small, small world.”
A 6’7″ and 300-pound lineman may require an extra yard or two of fabric compared to an average-sized businessman, but the process of creating a custom suit is the same for both.
Hutt visits a client at his home or office — in the case of the Texans, their locker room. She asks pointed questions about a client’s career, lifestyle, body type and color preferences. She goes over his suit needs, existing wardrobe and price points. (B.spoke suits start around $1,295.) One hour and 28 measurements later, Hutt has what she needs.
After sending the measurements and patterns to a factory, Hutt is walking back to the client four or five weeks later with clothing in hand.
“There’s always an education process for both style-wise and fit-wise,” Hutt said of the athletes she works with who typically are used to off-the-rack suits tailored — maybe — after the fact.
“It’s always funny having an athlete,” she continued. “On their very, very first custom suit, you can just see it on their face, ‘Oh my God, this is so fitted.’ They kind of do a double glance. ‘Oh my god, this looks so good.'”
She typically warns athletes that clothes may fit more snugly than suits off the rack. But a month after delivering an athlete’s first custom suit, Hutt typically receives a call filled with enthusiastic thank yous.
“Most are super eager to be able to wear something other than their sweatpants,” Hutt said.
For teams such as the Texans and Broncos that require players to dress sharp for away games, it’s a chance to one-up each other, she said.
“There always is a competition when guys want to be fresh,” said Omar Bolden, a former Broncos safety and punt returner.
Bolden met Hutt in the fall of 2014, when Colquitt gifted the special teams custom sportcoats during a particularly good run of play. Bolden, now a free agent, had always been interested in fashion but that was his first time having a custom coat. Previously, he’d buy one from Men’s Warehouse and have it tailored.
“I just absolutely loved the way it fit,” Bolden said of the b.spoke coat. “It’s completely different when the garment actually started from nothing.”
Bolden said the five blazers and suits designed by Hutt are his favorites among the 12 he owns.
Not everyone can afford custom suits and there is no shame in getting a suit off the rack, he said. But if someone wanted to go custom, he advised that they establish a relationship with a tailor or stylist.
“It’s more about the relationship and the chemistry I have with Paige than the custom suiting,” Bolden said. “I can get the custom suiting anywhere.”
The football player said he tries to push the envelope with his fashion and Hutt helps him do it. B.spoke has more than 50,000 fabrics for clients to consider, which can be overwhelming, so Hutt will help hone down on something within the customer’s wheelhouse, but still stretches his boundaries.
“I find that with my athletes, they’re basic like, ‘Paige, we trust you. I know who you dress and they look good,’ ” Hutt said. “They leave most of the styling up to me rather than really picking out their fabrics. Some clients and athletes really love that and others have just seen what I’ve done in the past and leave it up to me.”
Client Sean Withrow, a Denver investment consultant, described Hutt’s role as similar to an interior designer. You may walk in asking for one thing, but then she offers other available options that change your mind.
Withrow has worked with about six other custom tailors previously but has stuck with Hutt. In his line of work, he said it’s important to make the right impression and not wear the same ill-fitting suit as competitors.
Withrow says he’s gone to Nuggets games and can tell which coaches and staff work with Hutt — they’re “the ones that are a little better dressed.” Though his personal style doesn’t always align with that of professional athletes, Withrow said Hutt’s clientele is an endorsement of her work.
“You can certainly argue that most of these folks could afford to buy these clothes wherever they wanted to,” he said. “The fact they’re working with her speaks highly of the way she works with clients and the quality of the clothing her company provides.”
