BC Business
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Allegiant Financial's Michael Mercer.
Is this your day-to-day look? I actually dress in jeans and T-shirt on my way to work, but I always keep a suit hanging up in the office, just in case. If there’s a broker meeting or I need to address the CEO of a company, the suit has to go on. Where did you buy it? I picked it up at Leone about a year ago for about $2,200. It’s an Armani made-to-measure. It makes me feel like whatever I did to get this suit worked. Made to measure? Pretty swanky. Because of my size, I have to get things made to measure. I’m 220-plus pounds. I have a 54-inch chest and a 33-inch waist. I have to try and dress in a way that doesn’t make me look beefcakey. Otherwise people won’t take you seriously. They’re like, ‘What do you do? Spend all your time in the gym?’ That’s not the impression you want to give in business. How did you get so big? I do mixed martial arts, but I don’t compete anymore. When I first started working in this career, I was a lot bigger than I am now. I would walk into the Canaccord office in, say, Abbotsford, and everybody at the round table would think I was there in case the deal went south. What other labels are you wearing? The shirt’s Armani too – it was about $350 – and the shoes are Prada. They were about $500 or $600. Pradas are probably the least comfortable shoes in my collection, but I’ll wear them because they’re Pradas. You’re pretty fashion-conscious, then. I like certain things and I know what works for me. But I’m not one of those guys that goes around town with Dolce & Gabbana across my chest. I’m more subtle than that. I tell my friends, “It costs a lot to look like I don’t care.”