Mizzen + Main Founder Kevin Lavelle joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how consumer trends and office wardrobes are changing amid the prevalence of remote work.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: OK, will the talk of a recession and a concession by Fed Chair Jerome Powell that he is willing to let unemployment increase force Americans back to the office? And how might that return impact the retail sector? Kevin Lavelle is the founder of men's work leisure brand, Mizzen & Main. He joins us now. Great to see you, my friend. So what does your research tell you about work from home and how our clothing patterns are shifting?

KEVIN LAVELLE: Yeah, thanks so much for having us. We've seen an explosion of research in men looking to figure out how to go back to the workplace. Over the course of the last year, Google Trends show search for dress shirts is up 40%. Our own customers and our own on-site search is up several hundred percent in terms of dress shirts over those more casual options.

And at the end of the day, guys have gotten used to working at home and feeling a lot more comfortable. And this is why I created Mizzen & Main a decade ago, to bring the best of stretch performance fabrics to traditional menswear. So our offering is saying, if you like those stretchy athleisure clothes when you were working at home, but you need to go back into the office or perhaps look a little nicer on Zoom, we're here for you.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And it's interesting. I couldn't believe that in the past 12 months, 60% of the respondents that you surveyed shopped for work clothing at an athletic retailer. Is that going to be the new norm? People want that sort of blend of comfort, as well as sort of business smart.

KEVIN LAVELLE: Yeah, absolutely. There's no going back to the clothes that require ironing and dry cleaning all the time, that don't stretch, that just make you feel stiff and uncomfortable. People have just changed their expectations. Mizzen & Main started about a decade ago, as I said earlier. And there are a number of other brands that are now crossing, really, the chasm between pure athleisure and that traditional performance and pure athletic. It's a hard blend to find at this point in time.