The new Tweeds suit shop seems to be tailor-made for Naples, which annually hosts a bevy of stunning philanthropic events where attendees often make personal statements with dazzling custom clothing.

Tweeds launched Oct. 1 in a Naples Design District storefront at 955 Fifth Ave. N., between U.S. 41 and 10th Street North, that most recently was occupied by an interior design firm and previously was home to a personal fitness training studio. The custom suit shop is next door to Olde Naples Chocolate.

It’s the fifth location of Tweeds in five years for Donald Carlson Jr., the company’s 32-year-old founder and CEO. Born in Port Charlotte and a lifetime resident of Florida, Carlson has opened Tweeds locations in Sarasota, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Orlando, but he knew his custom suit shop would be a perfect fit for the affluent Naples market.

“We used to come to Naples all the time growing up and I’ve always loved this little community and the lifestyle and everything,” he said. “I started Tweeds five years ago in Sarasota and always had a want to find a location down here and offer our bespoke goods to the community. We’re super happy to be here.”

An extraordinary startup story initiated Calson’s entrepreneurial venture on the Gulf Coast.

“I sold my car. I bought a 16-foot box truck, and I built a suit shop inside of it,” he said. “At that time, I really didn’t know anything about fabrics or measuring or how the heck I was going to do it. I knew I just wanted to. I spent the prior seven years in the dry-cleaning business with my family. I kind of got burnt out on that.”

Carlson started Tweeds in September 2019, just months before the pandemic shut down everything in early 2020 and created a stay-at-home culture and a more casual workplace. He had to pivot.

“When COVID hit, I knew luxury suits probably weren’t going to be something that people were thinking about nor having events to go to wear them,” he said. “For a year, I ended up building an online face mask company and we ended up being one of the largest face-mask distributors. When that died out, I went back to Tweeds hardcore.”

A lot of shoe leather and pounding on the pavement preceded the opening of the stores two years ago.

“For the first three years of Tweeds, I knocked on doors, made cold calls, traveled the Sarasota-Miami-Naples area, built a clientele, didn’t have much overhead at first and was able to save a good bit of money,” Carlson said. “Then, I got inspired to want to take it from a one-man solopreneur business to learn how to scale a business, so I got kind of obsessed and intrigued with that.”

Carlson honed in on the process over time and established his niche products and services. Tweeds celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.

“I really just want people to know that we’re not a large company; we’re not a franchise. We’re a small business trying to grow into a bigger business,” Carlson said. “They are supporting local. We want to give everyone a boutique experience and really offer a cool product, a cool experience in the Naples area. I’m so excited to be down here.”

To celebrate Naples being the golf capital of the world, Tweeds’ Naples store has a putting green inside. “On the wall we have Scrooge McDuck hitting a ball on a putting green with Richie Rich as his caddy,” Carlson said, noting that each of his stores has a playful custom surprise element reflecting local interests.

“Every Tweeds location is designed as a place where clients can mingle, relax and have a memorable in-store experience,” he said. “We added a poker table in Sarasota, a basketball court in St. Pete and a pool table was added to our Orlando store.”

Carlson often prominently wears a tailor’s measuring tape draped around his neck. The accessory provides an immediate professional identifier, much like a stethoscope around the neck of a doctor. It’s more than show, of course; it represents the backbone of his business.

“Our measuring process is extremely thorough. We take 30 different measuring points,” Carlson said. “But what really makes it great is that, after that, we put a client in one of our suits and shirts and we take pictures of them so we can understand how our patterns lay on their body. It really is an extra step to try to create the perfect fit and, without it, it’s really tough to do that. Measuring is one of the most important things in our business; if we can’t nail the fit for our client, they’re never going to come back to us again. It’s just super important.”

Tweeds does all of its own sourcing, designing and measuring. Each bespoke garment is meticulously shaped to provide a perfect fit for each client’s body and personality.

“We always try to break up our appointments into discover, measure, design,” Carlson said. “The discovery process is trying to understand why is this client here? What are they looking for? Are they going to a business conference? Are they getting married? Are they a lawyer? Did they just lose a bunch of weight and need some better-fitting suits? What’s the reason? That’s going to tell us a lot.”

Depending on the need, the client may be looking for a custom pair of jeans and a sport coat or a suit or tuxedo.

“Once we know that, we can dive into color schemes and stuff like that to understand how they want the suit to be styled,” he said. “The lapels, the buttons the stitching, the lining, we go over all that and we try to help guide the client to the best decision.”

Tweeds encourages clients to be creative with a cool, custom fit that makes them look and feel better. Different generations sometimes have different preferences.

“Fit is definitely where we see the biggest differences,” Carlson said. “An older gentleman might want more of a traditional fit, and that comes into our measuring/discover process. Do they want like a full break on the top of the shoe? A younger dude might want a skinnier ankle look with no socks and the pants are shorter.”

Carlson wants his upbeat business to stand out from other custom clothiers. “Mainly, we’re really trying to bring like a younger energy to custom suits, but still keep all of that personal relationship,” he said. “I think there’s sometimes a stigma potentially behind custom suit stores being a little bit stuffy and maybe not as inviting, and that is completely not how we want to be.”

The Naples store is managed by Connor Muldoon, an experienced style consultant who has been working with Tweeds for many years. Muldoon, his wife and their two small children relocated to Naples from Sarasota.

Tweeds plans to continue opening additional stores. The next one most likely will be the first location on the east coast of Florida.

The Tweeds showroom in Naples accepts walk-ins Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., while Sundays and Mondays are open by appointment only. Mobile tailoring services are also available.