Sam Parven can trace his interest in clothes to a single rough day in 11th grade. During a JV basketball game in which he put up zero points, a girl he liked approached his dad in the stands and told him that kids had been making fun of him for how he dressed. The outfit in question was a head-to-toe ensemble of University of Miami polyester jogging gear purchased on a recent college tour. “I was looking like a mascot,” Parven says. “My dad says to me, ‘We’re going to the Ralph Lauren store.’ ”
Ever since, Parven has been interested in the power that clothes can have. Through college at George Washington University, he worked a string of jobs at menswear shops, including Thomas Pink, Buck Mason, Sid Mashburn, and Ralph Lauren. He eventually started a career selling ads at political media outlets like Politico and The Hill, where he currently works as an ad director. At the same time, he was gaining a social media following—now up to 60,000 followers on Instagram—by posting outfit videos and fashion tips.
DC needs plenty of advice: This might be a town full of suits, but they often function more as a uniform for blending in than a statement. “For as progressive of a town as DC is, the way that we dress and present ourselves is very conservative and staunchly traditional,” Parven says. “A lot of people come to me and say, ‘I am not allowed to wear a double-breasted suit. That’s for my boss. If I walked in wearing that I’d be fired.’ ”
During the pandemic, Parven planned to quit his media job and open a store that would help get customers acquainted with more interesting menswear. A new friend and seasoned Baltimore vintage dealer, Donovan Levy, suggested they go into business together to open an appointment-only shop. The pair opened Parv’s earlier this summer in a Dupont Circle office building, and it’s been a hit. Levy finds the vintage clothes by digging through thrift stores and estate sales, and Parven effectively runs the shop, booking 90-minute appointments through Instagram. Parven says customers appreciate the prices for his suits from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, which run from $350 to around $900. “We’re getting in college-aged Senate interns who are into clothes and can’t afford a new suit,” Parven says. “A golden-age Brooks Brothers is about the same amount of money as a new Joseph A. Bank suit that sucks. They go this route because it looks better on them.”
Looking better sounded good to me, so I recently made an appointment. I walked up two sets of creaky stairs in the old Connecticut Avenue office building where Parv’s is located. Parven greeted me, put on a funk LP, and started pulling suits off the racks. Parven’s own style is bold—loud ties and patterned pants paired with broad-shouldered sport jackets that drape dramatically over his thin frame. But he acknowledges that’s not for everyone. To illustrate the various styles of suit tailoring, Parven likes to start his customers off with a boxy Italian suit from the ’90s. If that’s too David Byrne for them, he’ll try a French-style jacket with slimmer, slightly flared pants. Then he’ll move on to classic, Mad Men-esque Brooks Brothers suits.
For me, Parven picked out a gray Armani with knife-pleated pants that he instructed me to hike up to my belly button. I thought it looked sharp, but he wanted to try other options, like a black Canali chalk stripe. They all looked natural on me, and for $700, they seemed like a bargain. In the end, I resisted, but I’m still thinking about those suits. “Just because it’s secondhand and vintage doesn’t mean it’s not special,” Parven told me. “I want people to feel like they’re going to wear it forever.”
Four Tips from From Sam Parven
1. Mix high and low
That’s what Parven does to, as he says, “push the boundaries of acceptable office wear.” He’s been known to wear sun-bleached blue jeans with a tuxedo jacket. “If you want to tell me that I’m casual, ‘I’m not too casual, I’m wearing a tuxedo.’ But if you want to tell me I’m too formal, ‘I’m wearing jeans.’ ”
2. Go a little roomier
Parven says most suit jackets are cropped too short these days, and pants are too skinny. It’s possible to go too baggy with pants, but generally men make the opposite mistake. And that bottom half is crucial: “The pants are the outfit,” he says.
3. Natural fibers are best
For summer heat, opt for looser suits in natural lightweight materials like tropical wool and linen rather than skinny, stretchy suits made with polyester. “The issue of comfort was solved in the wrong way,” Parven says. “The actual solution, in my opinion, is natural fibers with as little fabric touching your body at a time as possible in the summer.”
4. Drop the “crossover” shoes
You’ve seen them on office-bound Metro commuters: the caramel-colored leather top of a dress shoe with a bouncy sneaker-like sole. Parven thinks traditional looks better. “The crossover shoes hurt my heart,” he says. “I think people are afraid of a penny loafer or a different [shoe] than a lace-up. And go for a dark pair of shoes. I promise it goes with everything.”
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
