I AM x DeShawn M. Bey: Confidence is the Dress Code

St. Louis designer DeShawn M. Bey innovates the custom menswear lane with a philosophy that transforms clothing into supreme confidence.

From Retail Styling to Custom Menswear

Clock it the moment someone walks in wearing one of his pieces. Heads turn. The posture shifts. Confidence arrives before the introduction. That’s not accidental. Before he was designing custom menswear, DeShawn worked retail in St. Louis, styling clients, building relationships, and gradually noticing something most people overlook: the right outfit changes how a person carries themselves.

Customers noticed it, too.

“I used to have a clientele base from styling people,” he says. “After a while, they started telling me, ‘You should start your own thing. You should be designing for people.’ “

That suggestion sparked something.

DeShawn began researching the steps to craft authentic custom clothing. He is not tailoring existing pieces, by the way. This artist creates real cut-and-sew work, architecting garments from the ground up. “I knew people had custom things,” he says. “But I never thought about customizing suits for myself or anybody else until that point.” Once the idea took hold, he did not let it go.

Today, DeShawn is carving out his own lane in St. Louis’ menswear with his mens fashion design firm, I AM… Wear it with Power.

The Power of Words in Design

Every piece DeShawn creates begins with affirmation. Literally. Words chosen by the client. Words meant to reinforce confidence and identity long before the jacket goes on. “I have a strong belief that words are powerful,” he says. “You speak things into existence.” That belief became the foundation of his brand.

Each garment carries a simple framework: I AM, followed by the client’s personal affirmation, and a tagline that reads Wear With Power.

When the suit goes on, the message goes with it. “So whatever that affirmation is,” DeShawn says, “Wear it with power and be it.“

It’s a concept that sets his work apart in an industry so saturated with fast fashion that it rarely slows down long enough to consider meaning. “The clothes are just the vehicle,” he explains. “The real work is helping someone step into who they already are.”

However, his philosophy didn’t hit immediately. It was built through persistence and one particularly poetic twist of fate.

A Neiman Marcus Moment

Years ago, DeShawn worked at Neiman Marcus in St. Louis as an assistant manager in the men’s department. Behind the scenes, he was quietly building his custom clothing business, studying the mechanics of high-end retail while figuring out how his own brand might grow.

Then one day, management approached him with a decision. His clothing business, they said, was a conflict of interest. He could keep the job or keep the business.

He chose the business.

“They told me I had to quit my business or quit Neiman’s,” he recalls. “Right there on the spot, I said, ‘Well, I might as well give you my two weeks.'”

Fast-forward six years.

The same store that once asked him to choose would display his custom work in the Black Creatives in the Lou Black History Month Showcase, right inside Neiman Marcus.

“Oh yeah,” he laughs. “They saw it.”

Not surprisingly, his humility was palpable. DeShawn’s experience was confirmation with not a tinge of revenge. He simply held the future so clearly in his mind. “I already saw it,” he says. “Now I’m just walking through it.”

“If you can make noise here, you can make noise anywhere.”

– DeShawn M. Bey

Black Creatives in the Lou and the Next Wave

That mindset of equal parts confidence and clarity is part of what defines his presence within Black Creatives in the Lou, the collective founded by Yolanda “Yoro” Newson. DeShawn credits Yoro with creating opportunities for designers and with refusing to let them shrink back. “There was an event I tried to back out of,” he recalls. “Yoro called me and said, ‘Uh-uh. You’re not missing this opportunity.'”

That kind of belief is priceless.

Especially in a city like St. Louis, which DeShawn describes as one of the toughest places to build a creative brand. “If you can make noise here,” he says, “you can make noise anywhere.”

Still, his vision doesn’t stop at suits.

Building a Hub for the Elevated Man

DeShawn is currently developing plans for what he calls a hub for the elevated man: a one-stop space combining custom clothing, grooming, and wellness services designed specifically for men who want to move through the world with intention. A place where style means becoming the next version of yourself.

In DeShawn’s world, clothing isn’t decoration, it’s declaration. And when confidence is stitched into the fabric, you don’t have to announce it.

The room already knows.