Clothing Allows You to Communicate Before You Say a Word | Ryan Wood, Apparel Designer

<p>Ryan Wood spent sixteen years deciding what hangs on the rack at Urban Outfitters and The North Face, and he&#39;ll tell you plainly that a lot of it ended up in a landfill. He walked into the Well Said studio wearing a beat-up trucker hat.</p><p><br></p><p>Ryan is an apparel designer and merchant, most recently the founding head of men&#39;s product at Quince, and he&#39;s in the early stages of building athletic wear that doesn&#39;t look like everyone else&#39;s. Kelly and Pia get him into the mechanics of clothing as communication: what a hidden zipper and a cheeky line on a care label actually do for a customer three months after the purchase, why he takes inherited military jackets apart and stitches them into something wearable, and how vintage became his grown-up version of hunting for buried treasure.</p><p><br></p><p>The hat turns out to be his father&#39;s, from his years on the Blue Angels design team. It&#39;s one of the few fond memories he has of a complicated relationship, and it&#39;s the first of three things he&#39;d grab in a fire.</p><p><br></p><p>In this episode:</p><p><br></p><p>- Why clothing is the front line, and what it says before your mouth opens</p><p>- The Boston Red Sox hat test for anyone who insists they don&#39;t care about fashion</p><p>- What he does with the clothing people inherit and can&#39;t wear or throw out</p><p>- Why individuality disappears the second you walk into a gym</p><p>- The case against polyester from someone who spent a career selling it</p><p>- How Urban Outfitters stays relevant forever and why J.Crew couldn&#39;t</p><p>- Where to start if you&#39;ve never thought of getting dressed as communication</p><p></p><p>New episodes of Well Said every week. Subscribe on YouTube, and follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.</p><p>Find Ryan on Instagram @ryyywood</p><p>Timestamps:</p><p>00:00 Intro</p><p>01:16 The clothing people inherit and can’t wear or throw out</p><p>02:46 Remaking his mother’s shirt so she could wear it</p><p>03:26 What clothing conveys that words can’t</p><p>03:51 Clothing is the front line</p><p>05:29 What clothes do for connection</p><p>06:02 The story behind the hat</p><p>07:34 The hidden details nobody asked for</p><p>08:48 Designing for everyone and for the one who notices</p><p>10:05 Vintage as buried treasure</p><p>13:11 Why Urban Outfitters stays relevant and J.Crew didn’t</p><p>15:27 Merchandising as storytelling</p><p>17:05 Why everyone at the gym looks the same</p><p>19:08 Rather be uncomfortable than look like everyone else</p><p>19:30 The case against polyester</p><p>22:41 What his closet says about him</p><p>23:50 Microdosing the us-ness</p><p>24:47 Three things he’d grab in a fire</p><p>25:55 Where to start if you’ve never thought about it this way</p><p>27:51 Rapid fire round</p><p></p>