It’s a balmy Wednesday afternoon in Hayes Valley, and Caden Broussard’s hands are completely full. 

She’s carrying several bags of clothing and asked to meet me here because it’s where she’s making returns at the nearby boutiques for her long list of clients. The hardest part about shopping for men in San Francisco, she told me, is finding pants. “I think a lot of men in the bay have big thighs from cycling,” she posited.

For Broussard and her business partner Jinny Chen, who both run Cello, a San Francisco startup with an elite team of stylists mostly based in New York who help people revamp their wardrobes, this is all just part of the job. Their customers — who are mostly wealthy, single men in their early 30s and mid-40s who work in the Bay Area’s booming artificial intelligence industry — also share the same goal, especially when it comes to dating or meeting new people. 

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“Engineers, product managers and founders almost universally have all told me, ‘I don’t want to dress like a tech worker,’” Broussard said. 

Even in the year 2026, fleece Patagonia vests still dominate their closets, along with Lululemon’s ABC pants, which are in over a third of their wardrobes, according to Cello’s internal data. Basically, 75% of men’s wardrobes in San Francisco are stuck in business casual purgatory: Their outfits are mostly restricted to neutral colors like black,........

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