Seahawks’ Russell Wilson could sell rainwater to Seattlites

I was a little surprised when I first heard that Russell Wilson has a new clothes line.

I would have imagined that the swanky house we’ve heard he bought would have one of those indoor, electric dryers. They’re a lot better than pinning up your T-shirts on a line in rainy Seattle.

Turns out, the Seahawks quarterback actually has a line of clothing, Good Man Brand, that was launched this week at the downtown Nordstrom store. It attracted a horde of buyers, with a line extending outside the store.

Surely, that response is far more about Wilson’s image and appeal in Seattle than it is about the consumers’ hunger for casual sportswear.

That Wilson is involved in a clothing brand ready to go national (20 Nordstroms and 75 other locations initially) seems another step in the inevitable evolution of Wilson as a bankable brand.

I use the term “brand” in the general sense because Wilson’s name is nowhere on the clothes. Even the “Good Man Brand” tag is small and placed inconspicuously.

Still, this is all about Wilson and where he is headed as a public figure, relatable marketer and thought-shaper.

This is new territory for a Seattle professional athlete. Ken Griffey Jr. had the candy bar named for him, and the big shoe contract, but a clothing line is different. This is not just about reaching sports fans, it’s about being one of those few, rare athletes who stand as identifiable symbols of a lifestyle.

And from a sense of taste and value, Wilson’s line seems more appealing than the hideous boots Tom Brady tried selling for about $200.

At the launch, Wilson used a line that might have been the best marketing approach of clothing for men that I’ve ever heard.

The clothes, he said, are “… for the guy who is a 27-year-old like myself who is dating somebody way out of his league.”

Take the specific age out of the equation, and that line is going to ring bells in the mind of every dating underdog who ever heard that “one-in-a-million” rejection and was delighted there was any chance at all.

Not everybody is going to end up like Wilson, dating the conspicuously adorable Ciara, but if that Good Man Brand sports coat could end up shortening the odds to two-in-a-million, well, that’s doubling the chances.

On the brand’s website, the clothes all looked very pricey to me, but the tribe of sportswriters is rarely considered a target market for haute couture. Wearing anything clean and without holes generally lifts you above the 50th percentile on press row.

So I went down to the store to have a look in person. I tried on the “French terry sweatshirt blazer,” which had the feel of a jacket made from a really nice hotel bathrobe. I couldn’t find a good fit, though.

I wondered about the $298 price for anything with the word “sweatshirt” in the title, but it seemed to serve as a sports coat, and I’ve spent $300 on such things in the past.

The hooded sweatshirt felt great and fit well, but was $168 and that struck me as punitive.

Mostly for the purposes of the column, I ended up actually buying a long-sleeve color-block T-shirt for $88. It would probably work for a casual evening out in the summer. Very comfortable, and different from what I might normally get.

It was a good fit, pinching only in the area of my wallet.

I asked somebody with experience in the clothing business about the pricing of the clothes, and was told it was comparable to what you’d find from other brands in Nordstrom.

Wilson’s partners, I was told, are experts in fashion, and the marketing and production of clothes. But Wilson had strong input on the designs.

The charitable aspect of the line totally carries Wilson’s fingerprints. For each item purchased, $3 is earmarked for the Why Not You Foundation, which reportedly funds good causes such as the fights against childhood cancer, world hunger and domestic violence.

A couple tags that came with the shirt, meanwhile, urge the purchaser to do good things. Live. Inspire. Lead.

I wouldn’t argue with anyone who contended that it might be presumptuous or misplaced to push social action on an expensive T-shirt.

“What good will you do today?” was a question printed on one of the removable tags.

Cynically, I first thought that one option was to go to Target next time and buy a long-sleeved T-shirt for about a third of the price as the Good Man Brand, and donate the remaining $50 to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen.

One certainty is that if you stand behind a brand named Good Man Brand, you better live up to it unfailingly, or you’re inviting an extremely ugly skewering when it goes bad.

But I think Wilson has proven himself as a legitimate positive force, somebody using his platform to help others; a genuine walker of the walk.

It’s easy to scoff at somebody shilling spendy clothes, but Wilson, like every other professional player, is a practicing capitalist.

And he’s shown he’s about way more than just using his celebrity to make money off casual sportswear.

This story was originally published March 2, 2016 at 10:48 PM with the headline "Seahawks’ Russell Wilson could sell rainwater to Seattlites."