David Richardson, left, and Todd Seaton, right, are handing the reins at Skivvies over to new owner Ben Kelley, center. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
David Richardson and Todd Seaton have sold the last piece of their Cedar Springs retail empire to the store’s former manager. Ben Kelley, who has been with Skivvies since 2015, took over ownership at the beginning of the year.
Richardson and Seaton’s retail conglomerate extended way beyond The Strip to Oklahoma City and Austin. Houston was ruled out as an expansion city years ago when other Cedar Springs merchants warned them off. Lobo, Union Jack and Nuvo all tried and failed at opening Montrose branches, so the couple looked elsewhere to expand.
Richardson began his retail career with his then-partner Steve Freeman at TapeLenders on Cedar Springs Road. They opened a card and gift store called Jungle Red inside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City.
Although they had a house in Oklahoma City, making visits to the city easy trips, they sold the store shortly before Freeman died from complications from AIDS in 1992.
Freeman was a serial entrepreneur who opened a limousine company, a bar and a travel agency in addition to his retail ventures. He passed that entrepreneurial spirit along to Richardson.
After Freeman’s death, Seaton joined Richardson as his new life partner as well as business partner.
The first new store they opened together was Outlines. The menswear store was originally located in the rear of the building now home to Havana. The store expanded to street-front and later moved down the street to its current location. In 2007, they sold it to Dale Holdman.
They opened a second TapeLenders, this one in Dobie Mall on the University of Texas campus in Austin. That store later moved closer to the bars on 5th Street and featured a clothing boutique.
Richardson and Seaton sold both TapeLenders to Chris Lynch and Art Milburn, and both stores now operate as Package. Although the name on the Dallas store lingered longer than on the Austin location, the new owners changed the iconic name because they no longer had anything in the store resembling “tape,” and they didn’t lend anything.
“We were selling so much underwear at Outlines and even at TapeLenders that our manufacturers encouraged us to open a new store,” Seaton said. That’s how Skivvies came about.
Richardson said they were selling so much, their manufacturers came to them and asked what they could do to make their products better. He told them to get away from so much black, white and grey. Try stitching in bright colors and make the pouch in a variety of colors, he suggested.
Those innovations, Richardson said, boosted sales for a number of lines — not only at Skivvies but in stores around the country.
Richardson even designed his own line of underwear and found a manufacturer to assemble the goods. He said he hasn’t done that in a few years, but he has continued with some private label items.
They were doing so well in their new store, they decided to sell Outlines and open a Skivvies outlet. The new store was in an outlet center on Hampton Road near I-35W.
“We thought the outlet would create additional sales, but it was taking away from our Cedar Springs sales,” Richardson said, so they closed the outlet.
But they weren’t done. Richardson and Seaton opened a store in the West Village called Gender that lasted about two years. Richardson described it as a men’s and women’s clothing store but said it never really took off. Gender and the Skivvies outlet are their only retail ventures that aren’t still open.
Kelley said the only retail experience he had before coming to work at Skivvies was a year-and-a-half at the Gap. He’s been with Skivvies for 10 years now.
“Ben expanded our online presence,” Seaton said, and that kept them in business during the pandemic.
“When COVID happened, that was a big push,” Kelley said. “Customers would have more ways to purchase from us.”
He was also instrumental in adding outerwear, athletic wear, jeans and shorts as well as expanding the adult products.
Seaton said Kelley asked him at some point whether there was any opportunity for advancement with the company, so he made him assistant manager.
“About four years ago, we began letting him do more and more,” Seaton said. That included doing some of the buying.
As for Kelley’s plans for the store, he doesn’t want to mess with success. But, he said, the space does need a facelift. And he said he’s always looking for hot new lines.
But the focus will still be on underwear.
“Underwear makes it Skivvies,” he said.
As for Richardson and Seaton, they’re planning to begin their retirement with at least six months’ of travel, starting with a cruise.