Our Story.
Every brand & product has a story… this is ours.
How Pro-Stays™ Was Born.
My name is John and I wear button-down collared shirts almost every day. Starting from work in the am to social time through the night, I want them to look great! But if your collar is lying flat on your shoulder and not up like it is supposed to be, it looks sloppy. The last thing you want when presenting yourself for business or fun is to look like you don’t care about how you look. That is why we came up with Pro-Stays™!
Current Collar Challenges:
My shirts are dry cleaned and starched but after a few hours of wear, the collars would not stay up. It is an awful feeling when you get dressed for a meeting (a sport coat, a few buttons undone on my collar and no tie being my uniform) and then see yourself after and your collar looked like a sitcom actor from a few decades ago. So embarrassing!
Then I bought metal/magnet stays that do not give your collar any flexibility. Your collar is basically stuck to your shirt (like a button collar). They are too ‘businessy’ for a night and don’t look right while wearing your shirt under a sweater and sometimes a jacket. Plus, you can lose the expensive magnets while wearing them. (Nothing worse than thinking you look presentable then you find you lost one magnet and one of your collars is chilling on your shoulder.)
After exhausting all of the above-mentioned options, I just got to a point I would squeeze my collar between my forefinger and thumb, and pull it up so it looked right and say a prayer that it would stay up. If you can go to the bathroom every 20 minutes you can look good.
Pro-Stays™ R&D:
A few years ago I started asking my friends and clients if they shared the same “sloppy collar’ problem. I’d get half-way through the question about lay-flat collars and they would be like, ‘OMG!! I hate when my collar (input your frustrating collar statements here)’. At that point I knew I wasn’t the only one with collar paranoia; everyone who cares does! That is when we knew that collared shirt wearers everywhere needed a product to combat that lazy look.
Once we identified there was a global want for a solution, my partners, Richard and Susy, and I, started dissecting the problem. Then it hit us, stays were made in a time when men wore button down shirts with ties. The collar needed to ‘stay’ pointy, but the tie is what kept the collar high and tight. So, a shirt without a tie holding the collar up needs additional structure to the collar band that holds the collar.
Knowing that, we started making prototypes. There were many iterations of this product that have moved through our hands. We tried many substrates, sizes and shapes. We worked with adhesive companies everywhere to come up with the perfect “grip” pad that will not stick or hurt the fabric of your shirt.
The Pro-Stay™ Solution:
The combination of the perfect shape and adhesive makes Pro-Stays™ collar stability unmatched and fully functional. It feels good in your collar. You know it is there and that it is working, keeping your confidence high and the message you want to express clearer.
Please let us know if you have any product enhancements you may want to see. We are always looking to expand the brand and to make the product even better.
We hope you love it like we do. We hope it helps convey more you!
John Mascari