As the son of a Baltimore men’s trouser manufacturer, Barry Bricken learned the fashion business from the ground up.  . His father was his mentor in fabrics and construction, and after he graduated from the University of Maryland with an accounting degree, Bricken opened a men’s retail store in Baltimore.

A passion for design, sales and marketing led Bricken to New York in 1969 to begin selling his trousers in a one-room apartment and carrying samples to retailers in a brown paper bag.

The designer’s career began with “Trousers by Barry,” luxury men’s trousers manufactured in Allentown. Pennsylvania, which was the finest trouser manufacturing factory in America.

Bricken pioneered high fashion men’s trousers, introducing fine Italian and English fabrics in unusual styling. The trousers became well-known for casual elegance with clean, balanced looks., available with upscale retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Paul Stuart, Bloomindales and Nordstrom.

After the initial success, he launched a line of women’s bridge trousers under the Barry Bricken label, catapulting volume from $7 million to over $20 million. Women’s grew to 85 percent of the total product line and expanded into a full collection by the mid-1980s. Bricken opened full line women’s retail stores in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC, Seattle, Palm Beach and other key cities.

During his career, Bricken has received awards for design, and was a founding member of the Designers Collective, where he was President and Chairman for 20 years. The Collective led to the launch of the Coterie by Elyse Kroll. “As they say, the rest is history,” Bricken note.