But Khan does offer any founder a sharp-edged, three-inch-long metal bar made of a special titanium that he alleges doesn’t set off metal detectors. He slides it into his customers’ collars. “They make a mean gouging tool,” he said.
“And founders have asked for that?” I asked.
“All of them ask for that,” he replied. (“It’s definitely interesting at events,” Andrew Coté, senior vice president at AI defense company Forterra, said.) One founder is considering outfitting his staff in the suits and throwing handcuffs in each jacket. “Just to kind of make it a little special,” they said.
I asked Khan if any founders were getting their suits fitted for concealed carry. He said no—but the Fortune 500 CEOs were, especially after Luigi Mangione allegedly killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO. (Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges.)
“The older guys, they carry,” Khan said.
Khan’s suits aren’t for everybody. For example, they are not for Derek Guy, the viral menswear writer. “This is like…I’m sorry. It’s just like low taste,” Guy said on a call while scrolling through Khan’s website. “It’s just a slim suit. It’s like Andrew Tate, right?”
Khan’s suits do emanate a certain machismo, with tightly fit pants and a jacket tailored to emphasize one’s biceps. His website features a video of a suit-clad man with a steel-cut jaw sprinting through the woods with a gun. “That’s a very specific definition of masculinity,” Guy said. “So I would think that if Silicon Valley people are buying that, then do they find that presentation of masculinity appealing?”
Coté said the distinctiveness is part of the point. “They’re unlike any other suit I’ve ever worn,” he said.
“As you’re in and around DC, once you own one or multiple suits, it’s very easy for you to recognize the tailoring,” he said. “It becomes a part of this community when you’re one of his clients.”
As more tech execs enter Khan’s teal atelier, more leave dressed in this strain of rippling-muscle masculinity. It may not appeal to traditional menswear devotees, but it certainly captures a Washington that treats manhood, wealth, and patriotism as ideology. Benjamin Wild, a cultural historian at the Manchester Fashion Institute, noted in a Wired article tech’s “macho makeover,” that “within America today, these men seem less concerned about their perception among the public and far more concerned about how they appear to one another, and Trump.”