Menswear Guides: Buyers Guides and Manufacturers Directories for Men's Wear

Check the Publication Year Before You Buy

A buyers directory is a snapshot of the menswear trade in the year it was published. The buyers named in it held those jobs at that time, buying for the stores listed at the addresses given, and the manufacturers entries describe companies as they stood when the edition closed for press. That snapshot is progressively less reliable afterwards. Menswear buyers change departments and employers frequently, department stores and specialty chains merge or close, and manufacturers change officers, price points and the garments they produce. For that reason the editions gathered here span more than a decade of publication dates, and each one should be judged on its date first. A recent edition is a selling tool. An older edition is a record of how the men's and boys' wear trade was organized in its year, useful for research, but its contact details should not be relied on for current approaches without independent checking.

The Buyers Guides: Men's and Boy's Wear Buyers

Three buyers guides head this page, and all three serve the same job from different years: putting the buyers of men's and boys' wear within reach of the people who sell to them. Men's & Boy's Wear Buyers 2009-2010, published by Douglas Publications on July 15, 2008, is the most recent edition in the group. Men's & Boy's Wear Buyers 2007-2008, also from Douglas Publications, was published a little under two years earlier, on August 6, 2006. The third title is older still: the Infomat Menswear Market Buyer's Guide, from Infomat Publishing Inc, dated December 5, 1998. A sales representative choosing between them starts with the newest, and treats the 1998 Infomat volume as background rather than as a contact list.

The pairing in every title on this page is worth noticing: men's wear and boy's wear are covered together, as one buying market. That reflects how the trade was organized — the same department stores and specialty chains bought men's and boys' clothing through related departments, and many manufacturers produced both ranges — so a single buyers guide could serve a seller of either line. The Fashiondex Books section is the check for current-year buyer guides before any of these dated editions is bought.

The National Register of Apparel Manufacturers: Men and Boy's Wear

Where the buyers guides list the people who purchase menswear, the National Register lists the companies that manufacture it. The National Register of Apparel Manufacturers: Men & Boy's Wear, Seventh Edition lists over 2,500 apparel manufacturers in the United States. It is fully indexed in an easy-to-use format, and each entry gives company details and officers, fax numbers, year established, dollar volume, number of employees, price range, and type of activity — including whether the company sells licenses — together with what type of garments the company produces, the fabrics used, and other labels affiliated with the company. That field list makes the Register useful in both directions: a retailer or brand can search it for a manufacturer by garment type and fabric, and a supplier can read a prospective customer's scale from its dollar volume, employee count and price range before making contact.

The Sixth Edition of the same Register covers the same ground — over 2,500 United States apparel manufacturers, with the same company details, officers, fax numbers, year established, dollar volume, employee numbers, price range, licensing activity, garment types, fabrics and affiliated labels — and it is kept alongside the Seventh so that readers researching a company can compare how its entry stood between editions. Read together, the two editions also show change over time: a firm whose price range or garment types shift between them is telling part of its own history.

Researching Menswear Beyond the Guides

Printed guides are one route into the menswear market; the linked Apparel Search sections are the others, and they divide the subject by the question being asked. For the clothing itself, the men's clothes guide works category by category, and the linked pages on men's fashion, men's clothes, men's apparel and men's fashion brands explain the terms and the labels of the market. For the people who buy, the Men's Fashion Buyers page covers finding menswear buyers directly, and the Fashion Industry Buyers hub places that search alongside the womenswear and childrenswear buyers sections. For the places that sell, the Men's Clothing Stores and Men's Clothing Wholesalers directories list the retail and wholesale sides of the trade, the Salesman Buyer Guides collect the wider family the Douglas and Infomat titles belong to, and men's fashion news follows the current season of the market these directories describe in print.

Keeping This List Current

New menswear directories appear as publishers revise their editions, and this list is updated when new mens clothing directories are found, although no guarantee can be made that every new edition is captured. Readers who find newer clothing guides for menswear are welcome to let Apparel Search know so the guide can be added. Readers who arrived here looking for a different market have the same choices in the other two audiences: the Womenswear Guide covers women's clothing guides and directories, and the Childrenswear Guides cover children's clothing guides and directories, each with the same publication-year caution applied to its own editions.