Meet the man behind the suits worn by Dak Prescott and other top athletes
Fashion and sports are closely intertwined.
Professional athletes not only like to look good on the field, but off the field as well.
That's where Tom Marchitelli comes in. The custom menswear designer was responsible for getting 17 All-Stars red carpet ready at this year's All-Star Game in Arlington.
"This is the biggest red carpet of my career," Marchitelli said. "It's like watching a movie and all of the actors are in my clothes so to speak."
Texas Rangers pitcher Kirby Yates was one of the All-Stars wearing the 42-year-old's custom designs.
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"If you're prepared, then you reduce the risk of mistakes. That is why I fly to personally measure all of these guys, all 17 of these guys have had me in front of them," Marchitelli said. "It doesn't get overwhelming, it's exciting."
When you see Tom, you can't miss him.
Marchitelli is in his Sunday best at all times, and that's intentional.
"If I'm selling Mercedes I can't pull up in a Honda Accord. I always want to showcase the best clothes, the best fit to get my guys' interest going."
Tom lives in Hoboken, New Jersey and has been in the suit game for a decade.
"I'm lucky that I was able to turn it into a business. Now people can say anything to me, they used to heckle me about it," Marchitelli recalled.
Before getting into the world of clothes, he worked as a hedge fund accountant.
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"I sat still at a desk for eight years, not doing much besides crunching numbers and doing work to make the portfolio managers wealthy," he said.
Tom's wife suggested that he pursue something he loved in his downtime.
He started a Tumblr page critiquing what male athletes and actors wore on the red carpet.
Eventually, that turned into a Twitter and Instagram account called Gentlenman's Playbook.
It's there that Marchitelli caught the attention of professional athletes.
"I would post myself in suits that I had made by someone else. This was a clothier, a custom clothier in New York who does what I do now," he said. "I was paying a lot for these suits are going to these events with my wife, weddings formal events and whatnot, and athletes became interested and that's really where it turned into a business unintentionally," he said.
2016 was the first year Tom was able to design full-time.
It didn't take long for his business to start booming.
"I would send out hundreds of DMs a day. I would DM everyone on every roster," he said.
For Tom there was one big name quarterback in particular who he said changed his life and his business: Dak Prescott.
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The two met in a hotel lobby at the 2017 NFL Honors in Houston while Marchitelli was waiting for one of his clients.
"He came over to me and he said, ‘Hey man, I like that fit. Who made you that?’ and I said, I'm very glad you asked, because I did," he recalled. "He dapped me up and said, 'Take my number, I'm ready to buy.'"
Marchitelli says those words changed his life and business forever.
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For the last seven years, every suit you've seen Dak wear has been designed by Marchitelli.
He's also added Cowboys players Ezekiel Elliott and DeMarcus Lawrence to his client list which now includes more than 450 professional athletes.
"All it takes is one guy in one locker room to give me the shot and then I dress them, they walk into a game and a whole lot of people are asking, 'Hey who made you that suit?' and then the snowball effect starts," Marchitelli said.
The best of the best does come at a price.
Typically, Tom's suits run between $3,000-$5,000.
He designs about 1,000 suits a year and can have them made as quickly as in one day in he has the athlete's measurements.