“I tell guys all the time that it’s become more and more of a decision and a choice to wear a suit,” says Donald Carlson. “No one really has to wear a suit to work anymore. If you’re wearing a suit, you’ve made the conscious decision to look good and stand out from the pack. I know that when I wear a suit, I feel much better, I hold my head a little bit higher and feel more professional. It sends a signal to my brain: OK, I’m working right now.” Carlson is the founder of Tweeds Suit Shop, a high-end custom suit shop, and clothier that specializes in designing one-of-a-kind pieces for a wide range of clientele. A longtime mobile entity, Tweeds Suit Shop established its first brick-and-mortar location in downtown Sarasota this past March, marking a big step in the right direction for Carlson. “We started as a mobile custom clothier–we got our hands on a 16-foot box truck in July of 2019 and operated out of that for a few years,” says Carlson. “We traveled to clients’ homes and offices, for fittings and designing custom pieces. We still do that today, but now we have a home base with ready-to-order suits as well as custom suits, belts, ties, shoes and more.” 

For Carlson, the decision to carve out a career in the fashion industry came naturally. His family owns a drycleaning business and Carlson grew up picking up and dropping off clothes for clients. “I’ve always been around fine clothing, which made me adopt the theories: dress for success, look good, feel good, that sort of thing,” says Carlson. “I worked with my dad from 2012 to 2019, helping him with the financial and marketing side of his business, but eventually I got a little burnt out and decided to figure out how to get into the custom clothing business. That’s how Tweeds started.”

Clients visit Tweeds for more than just a suit. They go for the confidence that comes with knowing they’re wearing a tailored piece of clothing customized just for them. “There are a few reasons why guys will come to us, besides the point of them wanting something really nice that they look good and feel good in. There are some gentlemen that just have different builds and can’t fit into something off the rack or just aren’t able to find what they want,” says Carlson. “During an appointment, we take about 45 minutes with the client to figure out what they’re looking for. We break it down into three steps: discover, design and measure. Are they getting married, going to a wedding, heading to a black tie event or do they just need to add suits to their closet?  Then we take all their measurements, there are about 30 different measurement points to create the suit, we take pictures and videos to understand what their posture looks like so we know how to properly cut the suit and then from there we pick the fabrics and design the suit from scratch.”