Stock vs Finery

Those working in hospitality know that picking the right uniform supplier shapes more than just how their team looks. It also shapes how guests experience your brand the moment they walk through the door.

Enter Stock MFG and Finery LA. Both establishments have carved out a strong reputation in the hospitality workwear space. But they take rather different approaches to what a uniform should be.

Today, this guide breaks down who each brand is, what they can offer you, and which one is the better fit for your operation. Ready?

Stock MFG Overview

Stock MFG is a Chicago-based workwear company founded in 2012. What makes our origin interesting is that we didn’t start in hospitality. Rather, we launched as a heritage fashion brand, manufacturing entirely out of our own Chicago factory.

The pivot came when Alinea, then ranked among the world’s top restaurants, approached us to build a custom uniform program for their staff. That one project changed everything for us. 

Goose Island, RPM Steak, and Soho House followed shortly after, and the client list has only grown from there.

Image from Stock MFG x Soho House

Premium Hospitality Uniform Provider

Presently, Stock MFG occupies a fairly unique position in the market. We bring the design sensibility of a fashion brand together with the reliability and reorder continuity you’d expect from a serious uniform vendor. It’s not a combination you come across that often.

More importantly, that approach runs through everything we offer. Our programs are structured across three tiers to meet operations wherever they are:

1. The Core program is an in-stock collection of shirts, pants, aprons, and outerwear available online with no minimums and fast shipping.

2. Our Curated program sits in the middle, allowing clients to add embroidery or screen printing to ready-made styles with a short lead time.

3. Our Custom program is based on a full design and development process that’s built around your space, your brand, and your team.

That third tier is where we really shine. We start with your concept, absorb the interior design and brand identity, and build a position-by-position presentation before a single garment goes into production.

Following that, samples are developed and tested under real-world service conditions before anything gets signed off. After delivery, we guarantee reorder continuity, so your tenth new hire looks identical to your first, even years down the line.

Stock MFG Core Products

Our catalog is built to outfit an entire hospitality operation and not just one corner of it. In other words, every category is designed with service in mind: pieces that look sharp and hold up through a full shift.

Image from Stock MFG x Parachute

The range covers shirts and tops, including short and long-sleeve options, chambray work shirts, Oxford shirts, chore coats, sweaters, and blazers. On the bottoms side, we offer work chinos, trousers, service jeans, shorts, and dresses and skirts for women.

Additionally, our apron range spans waist, bib, crossback, denim, and canvas styles. Accessories are also available to pull any uniform program together cleanly.

Note: Every item can be worn as-is, customized with branding, or used as a starting point for a fully bespoke build.

Stock MFG Clients & Case Studies

Our client list includes some of the most recognized names in American hospitality. But it's the work we put behind those partnerships that tells the real story.

Image from Stock MFG x The Alston

Take The Alston in Chicago’s Gold Coast. The brief was old-school glamour with modern functionality. Fifty/50 Group partner Greg Mohr came to our HQ and wore the entire program himself before approving it.

The result was custom burgundy dinner jackets with satin lapels, stretch tech trousers, machine-washable Coolmax dress shirts, and accessory details down to custom bow ties and gold lapel pins.

Image from Stock MFG x Lure Fishbar

Lure Fishbar is a different kind of example. We’d previously outfitted servers at Bavette’s for their GM James Meek, and when he moved to Lure, he brought the relationship with him.

The new program carried over the double-breasted vest silhouette he liked, but reworked it in navy with a nautical twist to match the dining room.

Image from Stock MFG x Le Select

For Le Select, Chef Daniel Rose’s first Chicago restaurant, we dressed the entire floor:

Servers in cropped white tuxedo jackets, server assistants in single-breasted black vests, support staff in heather gray bib aprons, and bartenders in a clean white and black look that tied the whole room together.

The takeaway? These three case studies showcase our ability to adapt and create different solutions that fit your vision and your theme better. Our wide range is precisely why these brand names trust us time and time again.

Who is Finery?

Finery is a Los Angeles-based uniform studio founded in 2013. 

Co-founders Greg Sato and Min Young Lee bring a combined five decades of fashion industry experience to the brand. They’ve worked and lived across Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and New York before setting up their home base in Southern California.

From Instagram @finery.la

Their close relationships with chefs and restaurateurs eventually led them to an opportunity to style the staff of four renowned chefs. 

That experience made something clear: The hospitality workwear space needed a fundamentally different approach. So, they built one.

Today, Finery is a proudly minority-owned business, and that identity runs through everything they do, from who they partner with to how they manufacture.

Finery’s Anti-Uniform Ethos

Finery calls itself an anti-uniform studio, and that framing says a lot about their priorities. Their goal has never been to dress only staff members. Rather, it’s to move away from standardized uniforms and treat workwear as something that can actually dignify the people wearing it.

That philosophy also shows up in how they manufacture. Their garments are made in close partnership with small, family-owned workshops in Los Angeles and across the US. Many of those relationships span decades. 

Additionally, they work side by side with their artisans and visit often. It’s a slow, deliberate process, but that’s entirely the point.

Image from Finery’s custom merchandise

Their design references are equally considered, drawing on the following:

• Classic European tailoring

• Essentialist Japanese workwear

• The relaxed, easy luxury of the California coast

More importantly, sustainability is woven into their approach. Every production decision is evaluated through the lens of impact, both on people and materials.

Inclusive sizing and flexible silhouettes are part of the offering, too. This reflects their commitment to designing clothes for real people across all roles.

Finery Products

Finery’s hospitality offering covers a broad range of garment categories. These are built to outfit teams across every department. Their core catalog includes:

• Shirting, outerwear, and formal suiting

• Bottoms, dresses, and robes

• Aprons and accessories

On the service side, they operate across two tiers:

• Finery Studio handles fully bespoke programs built from the ground up, with custom design, sampling, and production. 

• Finery Core offers a pre-developed system of refined styles that can be adapted and reordered consistently without redesigning the full program each time.

In addition to hospitality, Finery also serves retail, entertainment, and culture clients, from hotel front desks and kitchen lines to stadium staff and museum teams. That breadth speaks to the versatility of the anti-uniform approach.

Stock MFG vs Finery: Key Differences 

Both brands launched outside the traditional uniform industry. Both bring genuine design sensibility to hospitality workwear. And both have built client lists that speak for themselves.

That said, the similarities start to thin out pretty quickly once you look at how each brand actually operates. See for yourself.

Image from Stock MFG x Momotaro

1. Two Brands, Two Different Starting Points

Do you know why context matters? Because where a brand comes from tends to shape everything about how it thinks.

On one hand, Stock was born out of Chicago’s fashion manufacturing scene. Our entry into hospitality wasn’t gradual. Instead, it was a full pivot, kicked off by one of the most demanding restaurants in the world.

Remember: Alinea didn’t come to us for only aprons. They came to us for a complete uniform program that could hold its own inside one of America’s most design-conscious dining rooms. Such pressure shaped our entire approach from the beginning.

On the other hand, Finery’s origin runs through a different channel entirely. Its co-founders built deep relationships with chefs and restaurant operators before ever producing a uniform. 

As such, their entry point was more personal: close friendships in the culinary world that eventually turned into an opportunity to dress the teams of four celebrated chefs.

From that foundation, they developed what they call an anti-uniform philosophy. The latter is workwear that pushes back against the generic and the uninspired.

The Verdict

Two different origin stories, and two strikingly different outcomes. Neither is wrong, per se. But learning the starting point of each helps you understand what each brand is optimized for.

2. The Custom Process: Guided Program vs. Studio Collaboration

This is where the distinction might be most useful for your operation.

Let’s start with Finery. It operates as a studio. Their bespoke process (i.e., Finery Studio) is thoughtful and design-led. They draw on European tailoring, Japanese workwear, and California ease to build pieces that feel intentional rather than off-the-rack.

For brands that want to work through a collaborative, craft-focused process with a small team of people who genuinely care about every garment, Finery is a strong choice.

Image from Finery x Chamberlain Coffee

Meanwhile, our process starts further back. Before we sketch a single piece, we walk through the space first. We study the brand identity, understand the service structure, and build a position-by-position presentation that covers every role on the floor.

Design, sampling, testing, production — all of it moves through a clear, three-phase process. And once that program is locked in, we guarantee continuity on every reorder. No discounted items or mismatched pieces, either.

The Verdict

Finery’s Core tier offers a pre-developed system of refined styles that can be reordered consistently, which works well for stable, smaller operations.

However, if you’re running a restaurant group, a multi-location hotel brand, or any operation with natural staff turnover, the structural difference we offer will meet your needs faster.

3. Who’s on the Client Roster (and What That List can Tell You)

Client lists reveal a lot, don’t they? Not just for the brand names or the celebrity collaborations, but for the patterns as well.

Take Stock’s roster, for instance. It runs deep in American hospitality: Alinea, Soho House, The Hoxton, RPM Steak, Momotaro, Hotel Kansas City, The Madeline, Lettuce Entertain You, Hogsalt, and Hilton properties, including Graduate Hotels and StiR. 

These are operations that needed complete uniform programs built around complex, multi-role teams. That’s the brief we were designed for.

Image from Stock MFG x The Clayton

Alternatively, Finrey’s client list is impressive in a different way. On the hospitality side, they’ve worked with Hilton, Marriott Bonvoy, Aman, Six Senses, Fairmont, Hyatt, Gramercy Tavern, and Providence. 

What’s more, Finery’s reach extends well past hospitality. Apple, Google, OpenAI, Meta, Oracle, MoMA, Live Nation, Equinox, Intuit Dome, A24, the Obama Foundation — the list goes on!

The Verdict

Finery’s cross-industry breadth is nothing short of remarkable. It also reflects a brand that’s built to move across sectors, rather than one that has gone deep into the specific operational demands of the hospitality world.

For restaurant groups and hotel brands, we recommend digging deeper into each respective portfolio.

4. Continuity and Scale: Where the Difference Really Shows

Let’s walk you through a scenario we’ve seen before:

You open a 90-seat restaurant. You outfit your team through a custom program. Eighteen months later, you’re onboarding new staff, opening a second location, and your original uniform items are no longer available. Now you’re patching together a look that almost matches.

The latter is a more common problem than you’d think. And it’s exactly what our guaranteed continuity model is built to prevent.

Every custom program we build comes with a promise: new hires can be outfitted to match the veterans, years down the line. With us, you won’t have to hunt for substitutes, and there won’t be visible inconsistencies across your floor.

Similarly, Finery offers reordering support through its Core system. For operations using those pre-developed styles, that works.

The Verdict

All things considered, the guarantee with Finery isn’t the same. For hospitality groups managing multiple locations or high staff turnover, Stock is better suited to bridge that gap.

5. Sustainability and Craft: Another Real Difference in Brand Philosophy

This difference is pretty straightforward:

If sustainability and local production are priorities for your brand, Finery is the provider you’ve been looking for.

Their garments are produced in small, family-owned workshops in Los Angeles and across the US. They know every manufacturer by name. Additionally, every production decision is evaluated against the full product lifecycle.

As a result, this is a slow, deliberate model. For buyers who care about where their clothes come from, such a distinctive edge matters.

Image from Stock MFG x Tre Dita

Meanwhile, our quality standards are rooted in fashion-industry manufacturing, with in-house design and full sampling before any production run. The process is rather rigorous.

The Verdict

Finery’s commitment to named artisans and local production is something they’ve built their identity around, and it shows. In short, both brands care about craft. They just express it differently.

Final Verdict: Stock MFG or Finery LA?

Finery is a well-crafted, design-led studio with an anti-uniform philosophy and an impressive roster. For brands that prioritize sustainability, local production, and a collaborative garment-focused process, they’re the way to go.

That said, if you’re running a restaurant, hotel, or hospitality group that needs a complete uniform program built around your brand that holds up for years, then Stock MFG is the stronger fit.

Experience what we have to offer and reach out to our team today, and let’s create a program worth wearing!

FAQs

Are Stock MFG uniforms worth the price?

Yes. Stock’s pricing reflects a full-service design process, premium materials, and guaranteed reorder continuity. 

You’ll be buying more than garments. You’re investing in a program built around your brand identity, sampled and tested before production, and supported long after your first order ships.

Is Finery a good choice for restaurant and hospitality teams?

Finery is a solid choice for brands that value sustainability, local US manufacturing, and a design-forward aesthetic. Their anti-uniform philosophy resonates with independent restaurants and boutique concepts.

However, larger operations needing full-floor coverage and long-term reorder guarantees may find Stock’s structured approach better suited to their needs.

Which brand offers better long-term value?

Stock. Guaranteed continuity means every new hire matches the team from day one, no matter how long after opening. Our consistency protects your brand standard across locations and over time.

Which brand offers better customization?

Stock’s three-tier system (Core, Curated, and Custom) gives operations much flexibility at every level. The Custom program is a full design partnership, built position by position around your space and brand identity.

Are premium restaurant uniforms worth the investment?

Absolutely. After all, your team’s appearance is part of the guest experience from the moment they walk in. Further, a well-executed uniform program communicates professionalism, reinforces brand identity, and holds up through the physical demands of service.