Syracuse University alumnus opens vegan men’s style shop in Brooklyn

When Joshua Katcher graduated from Syracuse in 2003 with a B.F.A. in transmedia, he had no idea he would go into the fashion industry.

“If you had asked me when I graduated from college, ‘Are you going to go into fashion?’ I would have laughed,” Katcher said. “I would have said, ‘No, fashion is stupid. Why would I do something like that?’ I was the person who saw it as trivial and inconsequential.”

After several years of running a vegan blog, Katcher decided to open a clothing shop in Brooklyn, called “The Brave GentleMan.” According to its website, the recently opened store is considered “the first ever vegan- and sustainable-minded men’s store.” Katcher explained this in his own words and said that his business is about more than just profit.

“We have two bottom lines. Obviously, we have to have a financial bottom line in order to function, and to pay staff and be able to grow, but we also have an ethical bottom line, and a lot of businesses don’t have that,” Katcher said.

However, Katcher faced some difficulties when he first opened the store, working a wage-job in order to afford the expenses of owning and running a small business in New York City. Despite the challenges, Katcher is unwilling to compromise his values.

He said that regardless of backlash from potential investors, he won’t use overseas labor or sweatshop labor to make his products.

Now with his shop up and running, Katcher is spending his time working on his upcoming book, “Fashion and Animals,” which is a “historical, sociological and cultural look at why we’re obsessed with animals in the fashion industry.” He is also a part-time instructor at Parsons School of Design.

“They’ve really given me the freedom to pursue my research and resources to work on my book. I’ve been saying that I’m almost finished for a year, so maybe now I’m actually almost finished.”

While at SU, Katcher formed the Syracuse Animal Rights Organization when he was a freshman. Originally, his ideal career was to make documentaries about global environmental issues. After he started his blog, that changed.

Katcher’s interest in the fashion industry is its global impact — it’s one of the world’s top polluters, affecting millions of workers and animals, yet many people still see it as an inconsequential industry, he said.

“That is seen as a really dangerous combination, so I started to become fascinated by fashion and the dialect of fashion, and deconstructing fashion,” Katcher said.

After years working as an editor and producer, Katcher decided to start his own blog, The Discerning Brute, in 2008. He wrote about vegan food and ethical fashion, to inspire readers to make better moral environmental choices in their everyday lives, he said.

“I wanted to start a website that addressed the mainstream male in a similar way to how GQ or Esquire appeals to the mainstream male,” he said.

Now that his shop is up and running, he said is looking forward to spreading his message and passion with the local community and beyond.