“I never thought I could look like this”: Men find their style at The Men’s Xchange

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The Men’s Xchange is a second-hand men’s clothing store on North Tejon Street downtown. The shop, owned and operated by James Proby, specializes in dress clothes for men: suits, ties, stylish shoes, pocket squares—the works. The shop is filled with racks of quality clothing received by generous donors, steamed and pressed, and hung on the rack ready to become another man’s treasure.

Proby loves clothes, but he loves people more. He meets his patrons with generosity and warmth. Loyal customers browse his shop, discovering not only treasures and bargains but their own personal style.

Disarming and deliberate, Proby is a natural teacher, and he’s on a mission to educate local men on looking their best.

“You see the amount of effort that women put into getting dressed right for social parties, for holiday parties, for office parties,” Proby said. “They are going to get manicures and pedicures. They’re going to get their hair done and highlighted. Right? They go through all those bases before they even start to pick out their clothing in their outfit. And then the man that’s in their life is like, oh, I’m just going to, I’m going to put on my good jeans.”

But nice clothing is expensive. Many men can probably come up with about a hundred things they’d rather spend that money on. And what about men who don’t feel comfortable dressing up—or who simply don’t want to? Why should men even care about this?

Proby has a ready answer for all these objections (almost as if he’s addressed them countless times). He tackles the question of cost first.

“We wanted to figure out how we could remove cost as a barrier. Suits are $50 and sport jackets are $40 and shirts are $10 and slacks are $10, and we’re going to measure you and then tell you how to wear it.”

Next, he wants to talk about comfort.

“There are a lot of spaces where you don’t feel comfortable at first,” he says. “There’s a long list of those spaces, right? Nothing feels comfortable the first time you do it. You have to do it a few times to figure out what comfortability feels like,” he says.

“The sexiest things that women can wear are not comfortable. High heels are not comfortable, corsets are not comfortable. Garter belts are not comfortable. But there’s a sex appeal that goes along with it. So we have that conversation with men.”

Proby has an amusing story to illustrate why men should care about dressing up. A man came into the Men’s Xchange wearing a Nintendo shirt, some standard wraparound sunglasses, and some cargo shorts. Proby welcomed him in.

The customer needed a suit for an upcoming event, and his wife had told him to go find something nice to wear. Proby asked him about the event and found out he probably didn’t need a suit and tie. A sports jacket and shirt would be okay. They started doing some measurements and chatting.

“And so we started,” Proby said. “I started joking with him and teasing and his guard went down, we had a lot of fun. We get him dressed, we fit him, we size him, and then we put him in an outfit.”

Then Proby described the moment when the customer stepped in front of the mirror and everything changed. He saw himself with fresh eyes for the first time in his life. The nonverbal of his eyes, his expression, and his posture completely changed.

“I never thought I could look like this,” the man said.

Proby asked him if he’d be open to some feedback, and the man agreed. “Here’s the deal, man,” Proby said. “Do you love your wife?” The man said he did. “Do you like your wife? Because those are two different things,” Proby said. The man said he did. “Are you still sexually attracted to your wife?” He was.

“Okay, here’s the deal. Your wife has that one outfit that she never wears enough that sends you over the edge every single time you see her in it. You can barely keep your hands off of her, right?” The man enthusiastically agreed.

“That’s you in a jacket,” Proby told him. “That’s you in a shirt.”

And it’s not just about attraction. Countless times, Proby has heard reports of men saying that they’re shocked at how people treat them differently when they start dressing up. “When you get dressed and you walk out, there is an unmistakable and undeniable way that in nonverbal communication you get treated differently.”

“And that plays into mental health,” he continued. “It plays into a sense of belonging. It plays into community. How am I showing up for my significant others? And by significant others, that means not just my partner and my lover, but my kids, my siblings, my parents. How am I representing my community in these spaces and how am I anchoring that?”

The sense of community in the Men’s Xchange, between Proby, his employees, and customers, backs up everything Proby says and believes in.

“Pretty rarely do you walk in here and it’s somber and solemn,” he says. “Yeah, like the music is upbeat and the vibe is about jokes and storytelling. Cussing is 100% welcome, but hate speech is not. And we lean into that mentality. The whole goal is: how do we help make dressing fun again?”

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