Good Day Uncut: Leo's Apparel

Philadelphia, we are Uncut. Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of Uncut, man. I'm out here at, where we at? We at Lehigh in Germantown Ave. Y'all know what it look like right here, man. So we in North Philly. So some people say North if they not from up here. The ones from up here say North with an F. So we in North Philly right now. And tell who you say hi? Hey, Mike Jarrett, if you watching, the people up top here say hi. Here we at, where you at? How you doing? appreciate you watching us take care so listen we came out here to Leo's Emporium now Leo's has been up and running for over 70 and 72 years the best part of Leo's Emporium is this picture right here y'all know him y'all love him Bill Anderson the Leo's Apparel spokesmodel we love that guy so listen man but check this store so this store has been around for 72 years i think it is like that they do men's wear they do uh boys wear hats all that stuff and they've been in the community for so long so we was like yo how have you survived and what does it mean to be part of the north philly community for so long take a walk inside meet Dave and some of the staff here they're gonna show me around the store and talk about the history of the store and and how they've survived up here in north philly for all these years look at this guy bill he's everywhere like bill is like the man up in this joint man like everywhere i go there's a picture of bill anderson in this store man so so welcome into the store y'all hold on let me switch this around again i don't y'all need to see me my man right here dave the owner the shopkeeper you throw that mic on you real quick dave all right you got here let me help you out there can we get you now that's gonna fall off just hold it in your hand so so real quick dave uh first of all man thank you for the invite up here man well i appreciate you coming out so talk to me a little bit about just the history of leo's how long you guys have been in the community and what does it mean really just to be part of this this north philadelphia community for as long as you well It means a whole lot that I could explain for a long time, but I'll get to that in a second. Now, my dad started this business back around 1955, I believe. I'm not quite sure. But my dad was originally in the clothing business before World War II. And then when the war hit, they were in the ghettos, and part of the family was killed during that war. But in 1952, we migrated to the United States. We, after the war, went over to West Germany, and from there, we were able to come to America. And within about two years, my father learned how to speak the language real quick, had a background, and opened up Leo's New Bargain Store, 918 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia. And those were the good old days, a lot of fun. And we had a store there. and then we moved right up here to uh germantown avenue in the heyday of germantown avenue back in the um i i think it was i have to think about what car my father had i think it was a 59 Olds mobile so we moved up here so so that was that around in the early 60s yeah well the 59 had the Big wing on the back, you know? Well, I'm talking about the store there, not the car. Like, why is the store open there? Yeah, well, you know, I'm a car head. I know, man. Now, we started this, and my dad was here until 98, retired, handed me the baton, and he says, it's all yours, you owe me nothing, you mess this up, don't ever come and talk to me. All right. Well, obviously, you have avoided messing it up. No, we worked real hard. I'm lucky I have had a great partner, my wife, who allowed me to do what I want here. And she gave me the freedom that I was able to go out and be a part-time pro race car driver and still own the clothing store. And that went on for a whole bunch of years. And then we took it over completely ourselves at that point, and we built it up. Real quick, so when we talk about the store and being up here in North Philly and being here at Germantown and Lehigh, you know, y'all have seen a lot of change happen up here. Oh, yeah, all different types of things. I mean, back in the early days, you know, we had the neighborhood gangs, the mighties against the, you know, the West Philly guys and stuff like that. But it was great. Lots of people on the avenue and lots of pretty girls all the time walking by. Now, you know, everybody has gone through what I call urban migration and a lot of families have moved out to, you know, different parts of the city. and you're still here we're still here we're a destination insurance store how many places can you go to we're even till this day we still have one or two generation customers still alive so fourth generation like so you that means you trust great grandpa grandpa pop son everybody down the line it's it's maybe one left or two but we still have third generation and it's really nice to have a business where they come in and go how's your father how's your mother is the dog still here and stuff so what do you think the key to the survival was like i mentioned earlier when i first walked in you know we've seen after floyd happened george floyd a number of stores up along Germantown Avenue got looted got tore up they didn't touch leo now what do you think what do you think leo's means to the community so much that you've been able to survive this long and you know everybody knows this is the spot well listen we treat people fairly you know we're we're we're a store if you come in and let's say you've got a in my eyes a 46 inch waist and you need a suit and you tell me you're wearing a 38 pair of pants you know we have to be politically correct and convince the customer that we're going to make you look better you know and it's it's the same thing as like when a customer comes to the register i go you need anything else the guy goes i'm good i says no we got to make you better and that's what we try to do we try to take the clothes to meet to match the man you know because not everything looks good on on each individual you have to try it on see how the colors look um and and and you got to tell us where are you going and what you're trying to do that's what i'm talking about so what's made us successful is that we take it personal with people and we find out what they're doing where they're going what their colors are you know does your wife have to approve the outfit you know so it's that nice little personal touch yeah that you give the customers that keep them coming back and it keeps them happy with what they get out of your shop and you know they come back and they come back you know from church on a monday or tuesday and they come in he says man i got so many compliments about it you know that's what's happening so listen we got to take a commercial break. We're going to walk around the store a little bit. They said they're going to dress me. They think they can make me fly in what I already have. I don't know. I'm pretty fly. Tell them what I told you about being fly. We take fleas and make them fly. That's right. They take fleas and make them fly. So look, we're going to walk around the store a little bit, man. We're going to come back. We're going to check out some of their offerings and see what they do and see how they treat their customers. We're going to be back in two minutes. Hey, take us to the commercial break we'll see y'all in two minutes we up here north philly at leo's apparel y'all all right y'all welcome back to uncut man right now we're like i guess this would be the shoe selection because the shoe game up in here is crazy they got something for everybody for every occasion look at these joints right here hold up might have to cop them joints on my way up out of here you know i mean it is getting in the boot season and hey look i don't know who called looking for me i'm not here so listen so let's listen so i got my man george over here right this is george right here so george came in here looking more dapper than dapper dan when he walked in the door man i was like i knew right away that he was the guy that i was gonna have to see to get suited and booted up in here so george real quick man just talk to me how long have you been with leo i've been with leo's for about 10 years and um it's an exciting and fun job let me tell it's not even a job this is an experience okay for me because i love clothing i love fashion and i'm just a fashion consultant here just able to live out my dream all right and we look at look at this look at this guy's shoes come on man that orange gators on a tuesday who does that man when is it wednesday so george so so if i walked into the store right and i said listen man i need suit or i need to get dressed for an occasion where do we start with that so i start with asking questions first introducing myself mike my name is george welcome to leo's and then i'll say mike what are you dressing for and you'll tell me all right i'm going to dinner with my wife but it's like an anniversary okay so you're going to an anniversary dinner yeah so see this tape measure here this tape measure identifies all I need to know about Mike to help transform All right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give Jen the phone. Hold on. Let me switch this back around, Jen. You take that, and we're going to let George do what he do. All right, run through the motions. I say he's almost a 38. Let's test the theory. All right. Okay. Take measure, don't lie. All right. Right on the money, 38. That's how I get down. You've been doing this a long time. You see him coming, huh? Wait, wait, wait. You know, I get this guy comes in like this, right? And I said, well, what you need? He said, I need a pair of black pants. He goes, I go, what size you need? He goes, 38. I get the tape measure. I measure this. I says, you haven't been a 38 since you've been 38 inches tall. I thought maybe he was going to tell him he was a 38, but to get him a 42. With a 38 label on it. I hit him right below the belt. That's sometimes you got to be honest with him. All right, so where do we go from here? We're going right to this rack. So 38 waist tells me you're a 44 long suit jacket person. So your suit's a 44 long. You think so? Yeah, let me move this out the way. Let's see what the jacket do when I put it on. All right. Because I've been buying a 46. You've been buying a 46? Yeah, because 44s have been a little snug. Okay. But, you know, it might be the cut. But it also could be your upper body, your proportional. Yeah. So your waist is one thing, but your upper body, because of your stature, is different. You know what I mean? All right. So, this is a 44. All right, let's see what it look like. Look at that liner, though, man. What size is this? That's a 44 long. That's pretty sharp, man. Stand straight. All right. Now, how do you feel in it? No, this feels nice. It fits nice. It fits nice. Because it's a different cut. Right. All right, the maker of that suit is Teon. It's African-American. His clothes are full cut. That makes a difference. So, it makes a difference. So, like, if it was an Italian cut, it might be a little tighter. A little tighter. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So then, so then we go from there and it's the pants. So y'all do tailoring as well? So we don't do any tailoring, but we have tailors that we recommend. We'll send you to one of our recommended tailors to help critique the suit, tighten it up when you need to be tightened up, hem the pants. You know, we make sure that when you leave here, you have a direction of going to get what you need to fully equip you for your date. Dig it. And then I might need one of these caps. That's the top off, right? There you go. So what we'll do, man, is we'll You know, every head needs a hat We've got the best head shop in Philly You had to get that line in Every head is a hat Every head is a hat Every hat is not for everybody That's a fact Because when you buy a hat You know, if it has too high of a crown It might look silly on you If it's too wide, it might make you look like a ketchup bottle top you know so so why don't we so we're gonna take a commercial break um we're gonna move over into the hat section so hopefully we can get a nice signal over there we'll go through some hats and you can try to talk to me about what goes into the hat selection what do you how you recommend them and all that kind of thing all right absolutely all right absolutely all right so we're gonna take a quick commercial break i'm gonna keep getting fresh out here up in north philly man and we'll see y'all in two minutes back in the day if you didn't wear a hat you didn't have a head so look at this we got hats for every head you know i'm saying he told y'all best head shop in the city and we got all brands so where you at dave i'm right here all right so real quick dave so talk to me um so when y'all got started did y'all always have like hats like everything from top to bottom no uh as a matter of fact a good friend of mine who passed away from covid had a store on 22nd street tommy's ray murphy and ray spent his money investing in the neighborhood and getting a real estate portfolio okay i took my money and went racing cars so me and ray got very close and he decided he didn't want to have a clothing store anymore so he gave it to me at a really good price and i learned the hat business and what i did was I went to a website called the Optimo Hat Company and they have videos around Chicago and explains what kind of a hat each head should have like some heads are round some are elongated some heads are like a football and most hats are made round right so if you have a different shape you automatically almost stretch the hat uh-huh then it taught you like if the person is short Tall heavy What looks good on this type of an individual where? Hats come in different sized crowns where the crown goes up high Which you got shows you have you have hats like this That's called an open crown and what people do with this and this is a Borsalino They give it a little karate chop They give it a dent here, and all of a sudden, the hat has a different... Now you gave it a little extra character. Right. And it's ready to go. So now, will this hat be good for every individual? Not really. If he's a real tall guy, you know, with a small head, you don't want to put a big hat on him, you know, a Texas cowboy hat. So you've got to try these things on and see how the individual looks. It's really personal. So what do we got? When I look over your shoulder, I see George back there with the hat and the steamer. What's going on in that shot right there? What's he doing over there? What the steaming does is it allows you to comb it. Whereas if you comb it wrong, you can see how it's rough. But once you start getting it steamed up, it starts to shine. And so now this craft right here, even the steaming and the combing, did you know about this or was this something no i i picked it up on this video Optimo Hat company and i'm telling you i show it to my customers they you know uh because we get guys that they want a Borsalino because all the dudes in church have Borsalino but they don't take it into account that maybe the hat that George is playing with is called the long hair um you could make it look better than a Borsalino if you want to, but it's a different style, so it might look better on you. You function, because I see you got the same thing on top, right? That's the same hat, right? So, hold on a second. Where your jacket at that you came in in, George? Like, yo, y'all don't even get it. George walked into the building, and I knew right away that this was a dude who was really styling and profiling. Where that jacket at, man? You got that jacket still in the building, man? I just want to see you. He told him to hide it. Ain't nothing to hide it, man. You ain't nobody to see this jacket. This is not a house jacket. Uh, well, uh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. I'd like to see it on him, man. Can we have him put it on? Oh, go ahead. You know. Can we have him put it on, or are we going to skip that part? Hey, look, I tease George all day long in this store, you know? You know, because I'm a jean guy, you know? Same. You see me. Yeah, you know how many suits I got in my closet? How many suits you got? One. We got to have at least one, though. One. What is it, a black one? My daughter's wedding. No, it's not black. No, it's navy blue. Good, good. You know, I got a couple. My wife keep telling me I need a few more sports coats. But look at this, y'all. I'm going to show y'all this right here. Hold on. We got to look at this guy. This is how he came in the building. You knew. I don't know how he got here, but if he walked up like this, you know what I'm saying? Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning. We had a woman come in here. Listen, George attracts a certain type of woman. One day, that type of woman came in and she was trying on something and she wanted him to come in the dressing room. I had to stop. This is not that show. No, I did not want that to happen. But you know what? This is a family type of store. Right. This ain't the Internet where, you know, you see a picture and then when you get it, you go, oh, yeah, you know, or it doesn't fit you or that here. People come on, try trying on things. They call their friends up to come in and check it out. And it turns into like a scene out of the barbershop. But, you know, and that's what you said earlier, man. It's like this store is like a barbershop for apparel. Right. You get people who pop in every now and again just to walk through and hang out. Listen, we have people that come in here that sometimes will say, you know what, we're too nice. They all come in here to hang to get away from their wives, you know. But, no, it's a fun store. You know, I enjoy it because we get a lot of really good customers. They go to church. They do a lot of things on the weekend. And they want to get dressed and look nice. And to do that on the Internet, you don't always get it on time. it doesn't fit right the material wasn't what you thought it was here you try it on you look in the mirror you can call your wife you can FaceTime her and say how do i look in that and she gave you she looked great you know and you're right man i can't tell you how many times i've ordered something online and got it and been like this this ain't it and i'm from that era where i want to touch it yeah i want to feel it i want to know what i'm buying before i purchase it and so you still offer that service oh absolutely that's that's the biggest difference because here you could dress yourself and check out what you're going to look like you know and um you know a man's taste is a lot sometimes different than a woman's taste so you don't want to make an unhappy wife unhappy so everybody comes in here and gives their opinion we have a good time with everybody but listen y'all we gotta take another commercial break we're gonna come back and wrap up the show um i might get george to send me out of this in this joint right here look at this i don't know where i'm going in this jacket but you know what i mean if i show up you gotta know i'm there we're gonna take two we're gonna take a minute and a half we see y'all on the other side take us to commercial break yeah that'll work it's a little it's a little big i might need to let my hair grow a little bit then we throw it on with this right here there you go Where we at little little multicolored mink with the with the Listen, I don't even know where else turn around in the city You can pick up something that looks like this, you know, is there any place? That does that does this where where I can walk in like this and walk out like this here Listen, there's a couple of us in the city. There's only maybe one or two two or three stores including ours um the difference with us is we you know we've been around longer than everybody two uh we know our customers and we also know that you know a lot of guys like furs yeah they're ladies like furs ladies like and if you want to be the happiest man in the world man you buy your wife a fox coat like this and you're going to come and thank me every monday morning every monday morning But what I'm saying is, here you can come and try it on and see how you look. Right. And unfortunately, in Philadelphia today, a lot of the old fur stores are gone. And today, with the economy, this is a pretty heavy item to keep as inventory. Yeah, the inventory gets expensive. So it's important. And again, as I say, you can't buy these kind of coats on the internet. I mean, you wouldn't even know what you would get. Look, let me come over here and stand in this mirror for a second. Come on and check me out. Oh, my goodness. Look at me, man. I look like a rich rapper over here right now, man. Look at me, man. This coat, when you touch each color, that's a piece. So this is a lot of craftsmanship that goes into building something like this. It's a pricey item. We only have one. And, you know, we can order for you something like this. So y'all need to get on down here and pick it up. I'm going to have to tell my wife that I need this. It's got an anniversary coming up. Actually, my anniversary just passed. You know what else? So I ain't getting it. But listen, we got to wrap up the show. But tell them we got layaways so you can come in. You got layaways so you can come in and in six months you can walk out like this. You be ready. So let's go. So listen, man, we appreciate y'all hanging out with us. We'll see y'all tomorrow. Dave, thank you so much. Leo Apparel, man, come up to North Philly. Get yourself something fresh.