The Tech CEO Uniform: Leather Jacket, Gray Tee, Black Turtleneck

The most powerful wardrobes in technology contain almost nothing at all. Three of the most closely watched men in business each arrived at the same decision: pick one outfit, repeat it for years, and never spend another morning thinking about clothes. A black turtleneck. A gray T-shirt. A black leather jacket. Each became so tied to its wearer that the garment alone can stand in for the man — and each story, we think, says as much about fashion as it does about focus.

Jensen Huang and the leather jacket

For more than a decade, Nvidia's keynotes came with a guarantee: Jensen Huang would walk out in a black leather jacket. The surprise, when he finally discussed it on CBS Sunday Morning this September, is that there is no single famous jacket — he estimated he owns "30 or 40" of them, many of them bought by his wife, Lori. "I'm happy that my wife and my daughter dress me," he has said, and his reasoning for the all-black sameness was blunt: "Black is the absence of choice… I took that off my plate."

The jackets themselves are not off-the-rack basics. Fashion experts have long identified Tom Ford as a maker he wears often, and one worn, signed Tom Ford jacket — matched to his appearance at a Foxconn event in Taipei in October 2023 — was sold by Sotheby's in July under the perfect title "The CEO's Uniform." It brought $960,000. This month the story took its final turn: Nvidia announced on November 12 that Huang had resigned as chief executive, with CFO Colette Kress stepping in as interim CEO. The jacket outlasted the job. We tell its full story in our feature on Jensen Huang's leather jacket.

Mark Zuckerberg and the gray T-shirt

Before the T-shirt, there was the hoodie — famous enough that when Facebook went on its 2012 IPO roadshow, one Wall Street analyst called the hoodie a "mark of immaturity." The plain gray tee that followed became the real uniform. Asked about it at his first public Facebook Q&A in November 2014, Zuckerberg explained: "I want to clear my life so I make as few decisions as possible about anything other than how to best serve this community." In January 2016, returning from paternity leave, he posted a photograph of his closet — a rail of identical gray T-shirts and gray hoodies — captioned, "First day back after paternity leave. What should I wear?"

Apparel RFQ Guide: Get Factory Quotes You Can Compare

Ask three factories, "How much to make a hoodie?" and you will get back three numbers that cannot honestly be compared. One includes the fabric, one does not. One counts labels and packing, one quietly leaves them out. None of them is lying, exactly — each factory has simply guessed at a different garment. The problem is not the factories. It is the question.

That is why we built our new Apparel RFQ Guide & Quote Request Builder. It walks you through writing a request for quotation that suppliers can actually price, and it builds the draft with you, right in your browser, so the finished request is ready to copy, download, and send yourself.

What an RFQ actually is

An RFQ — a request for quotation — asks a supplier to price a defined product under stated quantities, responsibilities, timing, and commercial terms. In apparel, that might be full production of a style, cut-make-trim sewing only, fabric, trims, or development work. What makes it useful is the definition. Instead of asking for "a T-shirt price," you describe the garment, the quantities per style, color, and size, who supplies what, and when you need it. A supplier reading a clear RFQ can tell what it is pricing — and just as important, can tell you what is still unresolved.

Match the request to where you honestly are. If all you have is a concept, ask about capability, development support, and a preliminary estimate, and label your assumptions as assumptions. A factory can answer a rough question roughly; trouble starts when a rough answer gets treated like a firm price.

What a complete request asks the supplier to confirm

The guide's draft asks suppliers to respond to the same set of points every time, so replies arrive in a shape you can line up side by side: the unit price with its currency and quantity basis; exactly which materials, trims, labels, packing, and services are included or excluded; minimums by style, color, or size; sampling and setup charges, and whether any are credited later; lead times and what has to happen before the clock starts; the delivery basis; payment terms; how long the quote stays valid and what could change it; and any substitutions or subcontracting the supplier proposes. You will also want the supplier's legal identity, production location, and one named contact for questions.

Winter Closet Swap: Store Summer Clothes the Right Way

By mid-November the closet is usually lying to you. Summer dresses and linen shirts still take up the front rail, while the coats, boots, and sweaters you actually need are squeezed behind them. A winter closet swap fixes that in one afternoon — and, done properly, it protects the clothes you put away, so they come back in spring clean and wearable instead of stretched or damaged in storage.

You do not need new organizers. You need a laundry basket, a few clean boxes, and a short list you make while you work.

Do it in one afternoon, in this order

Pull everything seasonal out at once: summer-only pieces from the rail and drawers, and stored winter pieces from wherever they spent the summer. Put them in two piles on the bed. Working with everything visible stops you storing something you meant to repair, and stops you buying a new sweater when a good one was simply buried.

How to Buy Clothing Gifts When You Don't Know Their Size

Clothing makes a personal gift, right up until you are standing in a store guessing between a medium and a large. Guess wrong and a thoughtful present becomes a return trip, a closet shelf item, or a quiet donation. The good news is that you do not need an exact size to give something they will wear. You need a forgiving category, a color they already reach for, and a clean way to exchange it if your best guess misses.

Start with the ideas collected in our fashion gift guides, then use the rules below to narrow that list to pieces that do not depend on a perfect fit.

Start with pieces where size matters least

Sorting a Loved One's Clothing: A Gentle, Practical Guide

A wardrobe is one of the most personal things a person leaves behind. A familiar coat by the door, a cardigan folded in the same drawer for years, a scarf that still feels like an ordinary morning — deciding what happens to those clothes is both a practical task and an emotional one. There is no required timetable for it, and there is no single right answer for what to keep.

Our inherited wardrobe guide walks through the choices gently: keeping, sharing with family, selling, donating, and setting things aside until you are ready. Here is the order that makes the work feel manageable.

First, confirm who has the authority to decide

How to Pack for Thanksgiving Travel: Warm, Light & Wrinkle-Free

Thanksgiving travel asks a lot of a small suitcase. You need something warm for the trip, comfortable for a long dinner, presentable for photos, and flexible for weather that can swing from frosty to mild. Packing more clothes is the obvious answer, and usually the wrong one. Packing clothes that work together is what helps.

Our guide to travel outfits starts from that same idea: choose pieces by the days and occasions ahead of you, not by everything you might possibly want. Here is a practical way to do it for a three- to five-day Thanksgiving trip, carry-on included.

How to Choose Winter Hats, Gloves & Scarves That Keep You Warm

A good coat only does half the job. The cold finds the gaps it leaves open — the top of your head, your hands, and the space at your neck where wind slips down your chest. Hats, gloves and scarves close those gaps, which is why a modest set bought well can make an ordinary coat feel twice as warm. They are also forgiving gifts, because fit is simpler than for shoes or jeans.

Our cold weather wardrobe guide builds winter dressing piece by piece, from layers and coats to the accessories that seal the openings. Here is how to choose those three accessories by fiber, fit and real use, instead of by color alone.

Hats: cover the ears, then check the fiber

For warmth, style comes second to coverage. A beanie or watch cap that pulls down over the ears will outperform a fashionable hat that sits high, however good it looks on the shelf. Try it on and nod, turn and look down: it should stay put without a tight band that leaves a mark on your forehead after five minutes.

DTC Apparel Logistics: Making Returns Pay, Not Drain

Selling direct gives a fashion brand control over price, presentation, and the customer relationship. It also gives it a new job: getting single garments to single doors, and then — very often — getting them back again. Apparel return rates online regularly run above 25 to 30 percent, mostly because of size and fit. That does not make returns a failure. It makes them a core operation, and brands that treat them that way protect both margin and reputation.

Our DTC Apparel Logistics & Returns Management Guide breaks the work into three phases: forward logistics, reverse logistics, and refurbishment and re-commerce. Here is how to think about each one in practical terms, and where the money is usually won or lost.

Nearshoring Apparel: Closer Production, Faster Reorders

A style that sells out in week two is good news and a problem at the same time. If your factory is an ocean away, the reorder may not land for three months — long after shoppers have moved on. If you ordered heavily to avoid that risk, the opposite problem waits at the end of the season: too much stock, marked down hard. That tension is why so many brands are now looking closer to home.

We have gathered the options in our Nearshoring & Onshoring Apparel Manufacturing Index, which brings together the United States, Mexico, and Central America guides in one place. Nearshoring and onshoring will not suit every product, but for the right styles they change the math completely — not just the factory price, but the speed, the risk, and the amount of cash tied up in inventory.

AI and 3D in Fashion: Fewer Samples, Better Fit

For decades, developing a single style meant sewing it, shipping it, pinning it, correcting it, and sewing it again — sometimes four or five times before anyone approved it for production. Each round cost fabric, courier fees, and weeks on the calendar. That loop is finally changing. With 3D simulation and artificial intelligence, a design team can see how a garment drapes, pulls, and moves before a single yard is cut.

We have gathered the essentials in our Fashion AI & 3D Digital Garment Tech Hub, which covers digital sampling, AI-assisted design, and virtual fitting in one place. Here is what each piece actually does, and where we would start if we were adopting it today.