If you know anything about the vast majority of professional basketball players, it’s that they are well taller than the average man. That includes retired NBA player Kevin Willis, a strapping 7-footer who gained fame as a member of the Atlanta Hawks with Dominique Wilkins, Glenn “Doc” Rivers and Spud Webb and retired at the end of the 2006-07 season.
Willis is also co-founder and president of the Willis & Walker clothing line that specializes in outfitting men 6 ft. 3 in. and taller. Willis and Ralph Walker, a former collegiate teammate at Michigan State University, founded the business in 1988 as a boutique-like operation offering premium denim attire to friends in basketball and other clients. They opened a flagship retail store in 2010.
Willis & Walker is now marketing the brand as a full lifestyle men’s apparel collection to retail and other buying channels. Willis, 49, knows full well from his own experience — when pants he bought off the rack would rise above his ankles — that a market opportunity exists for tall men’s apparel.
“We’re servicing a guy out there who doesn’t have any choices,” Willis says. “When he finds something that fits him properly, and it looks good on him, and he loves the selection, he’s going to buy it. I don’t care what it is.”
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