TOWN
Profile
Design Strategy Ralph Lauren alumnus Lee Norwood brings his experience to Oobe / by Steven Tingle
// photography by Paul Mehaffey
L
ee Norwood is sitting on a distressed leather sofa in the Oobe offices in downtown Greenville. He’s wearing cream Lee chinos, a faded denim shirt, and flip-flops. He’s tall and he’s gracious and he’s charming, and he has hair that every middle-aged man wants. And when he leans back and crosses his legs, he flashes a grin that seems to say You know you’ve made wise career decisions when you can come to the office in flip flops. As a kid, Norwood was one of those rare anomalies who chose individual style over the comfort of conformity. There’s a well-known story about the fashion designer Tom Ford being bullied in school because he carried a leather briefcase rather than a backpack. Norwood was cut from the same cloth, a kid who knew what looked good and had the confidence to flaunt it. He didn’t carry a briefcase in high school,
but he did wear an overcoat. He shopped in vintage stores before vintage stores were cool, and he’d mix his finds with hand-me-downs from his dad’s closet and old Ralph Lauren designs. “I know it sounds pretentious,” he says, “but I’ve always had a flair for clothes.” Norwood is originally from Charlotte, and after high school, he found himself at the ultra-conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. His time there was short, but valuable. “I ended up graduating
“The thing I love about Greenville is you feel like people are investing in it,” he says. “In any big city, the people are there just to consume the city. Here people are giving back.” —Lee Norwood
Oobe was founded as an outdoor lifestyle brand in 1994. The company is returning to that heritage with a fall 2016 launch of a new menswear apparel line.
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