State & Liberty

State & Liberty was founded in 2016 by Corey Epstein and Daniel Orenstein to address a specific problem in the men’s clothing market: the man who lifts weights, plays sports, or otherwise exercises regularly and finds that conventional dress shirts do not accommodate his shoulder and chest dimensions without producing a billowing excess of fabric around the waist. The standard dress shirt is cut on proportional assumptions that assume a body in which the shoulder-to-waist ratio is modest; a man who exercises seriously has a shoulder and chest circumference that requires a larger shirt size, but choosing that size produces a torso that is dramatically too large for his waistline.

State & Liberty’s solution is to cut clothing with the wider-shoulder, narrower-waist proportion that athletic bodies require, and to use performance fabrics that add a functional argument alongside the fit argument. The dress shirts use a material that is moisture-wicking, wrinkle-resistant, and machine-washable, which addresses the logistical requirements of the professional wardrobe in a way that conventional dress shirt fabrics do not.

The Georgetown store at 3101 M Street NW carries the full State & Liberty range: dress shirts in the athletic cut, performance polos, chinos and dress trousers in stretch fabrics, suits and blazers in the athletic fit construction, and the accessories that complete the professional wardrobe. The suit program extends the fit argument to the formal level: a man whose shoulders and chest require a 46R jacket finds that the State & Liberty athletic fit produces a cleaner line across the shoulders without the excess at the waist that conventional suiting in that size creates.

Washington’s professional culture, with its density of lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists who exercise regularly and who need to look polished in professional settings, is a natural market for the athletic fit proposition. The Georgetown M Street store serves the neighborhood’s professional demographic in the section of the commercial block near Key Bridge that has developed a cluster of men’s clothing options.

Hours run from 10am Monday through Saturday and 11am Sunday, with Friday and Saturday extending to 8pm. The tailoring program at State and Liberty extends the athletic fit logic to custom suits. A client who wants a suit built specifically for their athletic proportions can work with the brand’s measurement program to produce a garment whose shoulder-to-waist drop reflects the actual difference in their body rather than the modest drop that standard suiting assumes. The performance fabrics are available in the tailored program as well as the off-the-rack range, which means the custom suit can have the wrinkle-resistance and machine-washability of the brand’s standard dress shirts. For Washington professionals who live in suits and do not want to send every garment to the dry cleaner, the machine-wash option is a genuine practical improvement. The Georgetown M Street store at 3101 is open from 10am Monday through Saturday and 11am Sunday.