Leonard Cox
Lexington, KY – Graves Cox & Company, a fixture in Lexington men’s clothier business since the 1800s, will be shutting its doors.
Leonard Cox, a third generation operator of the store, said it was time to “hang it up” as a shift in men’s fashion have hurt the store’s business model.
“I’m sure right now if my father and grandfather were still alive…they would shut it in a heartbeat because it’s just changed dramatically,” said Cox, 72.
What’s changed, said Cox who began working for the family business in 1965, is men’s work attire and retail patterns.
“I remember going to seminars and learning how you can make money at 20 percent and 30 percent off, now you’ve got to do that just to get people in,” he said.
He said the rise of chains that offer regular sales and buy-one-get-one or more, have changed the expectation consumers. “We can’t begin to match the fact the Jos. A Bank and Men’s Warehouse have eliminated the middleman. We’re not big enough to do that,” he said.
"Years ago my father could do anything, go buy anything he wanted (and he’d get financing to do it). It’s a whole different game now, what’s changed is you’ve got to turn that inventory and you’ve got to do it quick. You’ve got to turn it through sales and you can’t wait until January and July to do it any more, you’re on sale year round because if you’re not, your competition is and you’re going to get killed,” he said.
“We don’t have the capital for that,” he said. “What is our forte is one on one, working with people and custom. That’s even slowing down because of the casual dress out there.”
“We’re selling plenty of sports shirts, plenty of bowties, plenty of needlepoint belts and Bermudas, but other than that, we’re not selling a lot. Maybe blazers sell, but your patterned sports coats and suits don’t sell like they used to,” he said. “Some times I think it might be price, but I really think it’s the lack of need because of the casual dress [in offices].”
For the next 30 days, starting Thursday, Graves Cox will offering deep discounts as Cox has brought in a company to run a sale aimed at unloading as much of the inventory as possible before he sells the store to a group out of Georgia, which he said will reopen the location later in the year under a different name and with a differing inventory.
The new owners, who Cox didn’t want to name, first reached out to him in early April with an offer to purchase, which he said he took as his window to get out of the ownership business.
“I want to stay involved and I’ll probably stay on with them in some capacity, I just want to change gears,” he said.
“It’s a younger market, they’ll put some woman’s [clothing] in, it’s not heavy in men’s sports coats,” he said.
Cox brought the store back into the family when he purchased the name back in 1999, 30 years after his father and then co-owner Joe Graves sold to Nashville-based retailer Genesco. Genesco later sold the store to its employees. In 2004 Cox reopened the store in its current location on the first floor of the Triangle Center at Main and Broadway downtown.