Robert Talbott has hired one of the industry’s most accomplished shirt designers to become its new creative director.
The heritage menswear brand that is best known for its dress shirts and neckwear has named Sebastian Dollinger, the former creative director of Eton, to oversee the design of its collection. Dollinger had started working for the Swedish shirtmaker as a teenager — his father Jan Borghardt spent 35 years with the brand, serving as creative director and a senior adviser. Dollinger himself spent 15 years as Eton’s creative director before resigning last year.
Robert Talbott was founded by Robert and Audrey Talbott, who left the East Coast with their son Robb in 1950 and moved to Carmel, Calif., where they started a business based on Audrey Talbott’s skill creating handcrafted silk neckwear. The company expanded into furnishings, men’s made-to-measure tailored clothing, knitwear, sportswear, leathers and womenswear. Robert Talbott died in 1986 and Audrey ran the business until her death in 2004, when it was passed to Robb. The brand went through a series of owners before being purchased in 2021 by Newtimes Group, a 60-year-old privately owned supply-chain management firm based in Hong Kong.
Newtimes relaunched the brand last year under the direction of its chief executive officer Alex Angelchik with a wide-ranging collection of shirts and foundational pieces.
“What we lacked was a creative director in the company,” said Angelchik. “We had a soft launch last year and learned a few lessons, but we wanted to further enhance the collection with a focus on dress shirts. We started talking to Sebastian last year and decided he was perfect.”
Dollinger said he’d spent his entire career with Eton and saw it grow from a small family-owned business to a large global company. Since its founding in 1928 Eton has changed hands twice and is currently owned by EQT Partners, a Swedish private equity firm.
Under its financial owners, “things weren’t like they used to be and I thought it would be nice to do something else,” Dollinger said. “But what that would be, I had no clue.”
One thing he knew, however, was that in his next role he would seek out a company with high production standards. “We perfected the dress shirt [at Eton], but we struggled with the production. But when you look at the supply chain of Newtimes, it’s like I was given the keys to the castle.”
Newtimes is a private-label manufacturer that lands $2 billion in goods in North America each year and owns several brands, including Ashworth Golf, Coldwater Creek, Bike Athletic, Brass Clothing and Encore by Idina Menzel.
For the time being, Dollinger will continue to live in Sweden with his wife and two young children and will travel to the Robert Talbott New York offices every month. He will also visit Italy on a monthly basis to check on the brand’s production.
At Robert Talbott, Dollinger said his goal is to “make the best dress shirt in the world.” And from the first samples he’s seen come out of the factory, he believes he’s on the right track. “I’ve never made such a good product before,” he said.
Angelchik added: “With our technological production, I don’t think there’s a better dress or sport shirt under $300 in the market.” The fabrics are all from Italy, the production is in Europe and the shirts have a natural ability to stretch because of their construction.
Angelchik said Dollinger will work closely with senior vice president of merchandising Nick Picchione, formerly of Ralph Lauren Purple Label and Giorgio Armani, who was instrumental in the relaunch of the line at Newtimes, as well as Jeff Morgan, president of Newtimes who also spent 16 years at Ralph Lauren and heads the sales efforts for Robert Talbott.
Angelchik admitted that the initial relaunch of the line didn’t meet the company’s expectations, a situation he attributed to the companies that had owned and attempted to run Robert Talbott after the founders’ deaths.
“Robert and Audrey were very beloved in the industry but the others created a bit of chaos and we’re living through the repercussions of that,” he said. “So it’s taken us longer to get placement.”
Even though some 25 specialty stores purchased the line in its first two seasons, that’s a smaller number than he had hoped for. But Angelchik said Newtimes remains committed to building the brand.
“We’re a family-run company and we have the finances to build this business,” he said. “The problems the retailers had with the former owners are not our problems. This is a brand that performed well for 70 years and is well known by consumers — better known than some of the brands on the floor today. So I would say to the retailers that it’s well worth the perceived risk to take this brand and try it again. We won’t let you down.”
And the risk is even less now with Dollinger on board, they believe.
The designer said he has worked hard to absorb the true “spark of the brand” and to understand its legacy. “I knew Robert Talbott because it was a competitor,” he said, adding that the brand was always known for its high-quality construction, colorful patterns and American fit that set it apart from the slim offering being produced by the Europeans.
“I’ve spent the last six months researching the entire story, looking at archives almost from the beginning,” he said. And what he discovered is, “I don’t have to come up with a brand story again. This is a legacy brand. And as a creative director, I just have to make it come alive again.”
Although his specialty is shirts, Dollinger will oversee the entire collection, which includes polos, five-pocket pants, quarter-zips, sweaters and other products. But the focus will be on shirts.
The first two collections offered “a little bit of everything,” Angelchik said, adding that by offering a wide assortment, the brand could determine what would work best for their specialty store clients. While washable merino sweaters and five-pocket pants were both popular, what the stores really wanted were more woven shirts along with ties, which are having a bit of resurgence.
“So we went back and developed more woven silhouettes — and we will go deeper. I think there’s a way that we can be a category killer in shirts and still have a collection business,” Angelchik said. He estimated that going forward, some 60 to 70 percent of sales will derive from shirts — a number split evenly between dress and sport shirts.
Dollinger’s first collection will hit for spring ’25 and it will be “fun, light, bright and colorful,” Angelchik said. Dollinger hinted that there will be a lot of color and print and a new logo treatment on the shirts, ties, polos and knitwear, and said he has created 171 samples.
“We’re not a shade of gray company. Robert Talbott is for the American guy who wants to wear blue or a check and for whom comfort is important. And he also doesn’t want to spend $600 on a dress shirt,” Angelchik said.
He concluded: “We want to encourage the specialty retailers to try us because we believe there’s room in the market for another luxury American menswear brand.”
