Hickey’s Designer Aaron Levine

The first thing I asked Hickey’s design director Aaron Levine when Elise Diamantini and I visited the Hickey offices this week was, “Did the gym shorts mesh tie make it into production?”

Blessedly, it did. I was excited about the narrow knit tie when I saw it at Project New York last July, and I was hoping it wasn’t just a prototype. They call it a mesh tie. It’s a cotton knit, but with the round perforations that you see in old jerseys and gym shorts. It’s a tasteful and innovative take on the classic knit tie. Retail: $125.

But we were there to talk about fall 2009. “I chop up the old Hickey Freeman suits to make Hickey suits,” Levine says of his creative process. He describes some of Hickey’s fall styles as “like a college professor, but tweaked. Different, but not costume-y.”

Below: Levine poses with some sports jackets from Hickey’s fall 09 line, including the new shooting jackets. The style, which comes in a few different English fabrics, has three open patch pockets, a belted back and leather elbow patches.

Levine is moving away from the natural shoulder to a roped shoulder, raising the armholes and going with two buttons exclusively—generally creating a more modern silhouette. Not that Hickey suits and sports jackets weren’t modern to begin with. If it isn’t obvious that Hickey is a younger, hipper version of Hickey Freeman, Levine describes Hickey as “a cooler alternative to Brooks Brothers.”

Suits start at $1,195 retail and sports jackets are mostly priced at $895. There are more three-piece suits in the mix, too. There are two very fresh-looking tuxedos ($1,495 retail) in the collection for fall: one in gray flannel and the other in a chocolate brown corduroy, both accented with black grosgrain lapels.

I asked Levine about the pricepoints—given the economic situation, not to mention the Hartmarx situation, have they changed their pricing structure at all? “We are where we are,” says Levine. He’s adamant that Hickey’s prices are fair. “We were never inflated to begin with,” he says, passionately. “We didn’t pull a number out the air.” Levine points out that Hickey’s suits are still made in Rochester, New York with high quality piece goods. “I defy you to find this quality as these prices in another brand,” he says.

And then he apologizes for ranting. Levine is very animated, but also very charismatic. This is his second year as the full-time Hickey designer. He’s enthusiastic about making clothing that guys won’t be embarrassed to see themselves wearing in photographs ten, twenty years from now.

But will guys keep dressing well? How will the economy affect the way younger men dress? “I don’t know,” he says gravely, “I’m shaking. I hope it goes back to investment pieces, where men dress like men.” His other rants are about guys wearing cheap square-toed shoes when they could be wearing classics, or squeezing themselves into the kind of flashy fleeting fashions one sees advertised in the first half-dozen pages of your average men’s magazine.

“Our mission is to help guys feel comfortable wearing suits. Not just for funerals and weddings,” he says, but for everyday wear.

On the brand’s infamous pot leaf logo, Levine says it’ll be more subtle in coming seasons. Instead of showing up on the front or the sleeve of a sportshirt, it will be under the placket, or in another discrete spot.

I asked Levine where he recommended young men go to learn how to dress the way their fathers and grandfathers dressed. “I send them to websites first: Men.Style.com and A Continuous Lean [particularly Michael Williams’ American-made list].” And of course, his own line. “Go to L.L. Bean and buy some chinos if you don’t feel comfortable buying my stuff,” he advises. “If they aren’t comfortable with the cut of Hickey, I send them to Hickey Freeman. Go to Alden and get some tasseled shoes,” he adds. “Hamilton watches” he continues, are not that expensive, and they’re American.

Whenever Levine gets fired up about apparel design, trends or business during our conversation, he’ll stop himself: “It’s just clothes,” he smiles. “I go home to my kids and I realize, it doesn’t really matter. But then again, it does matter. It’s my job and it’s my passion.”

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