UPSCALE VENTURE
North Penn grad teams with Eagles player for men’s store
UPPER GWYNEDD » Jay Amin may have tackled many career paths in his young life, but through it all one thing was obvious: the dapper North Penn High School grad has always been sartorially one step ahead of the pack.
“Fashion has always been an extreme passion of mine, and my dad was always into suiting and looking his best, so I grew up knowing what different things about the suit were. As I got older I paid more attention to European styles, since I was from there,” noted Amin, who was born in London and moved with his parents to Upper Gwynedd when he was eight years old. “Caring about my appearance was always very important to me and I’ve always been in industries where suiting was required.”
With his adventures having led him from hotel ownership to a pharmaceutical startup and even to a stint in the Navy, it seems the world of pinstripes and power suits was always quietly beckoning from the sidelines.
So it came as no surprise to many when Amin partnered with Eagle safety and wellknown fashion maven Malcolm Jenkins to open the high-end but affordable men’s store Damari Savile at Washington Square in Philadelphia last summer.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart, and I’ve always kept my eyes open, and although fashion is a very difficult industry to get involved with, it was just a good timing thing for me to do this now,” Amin said. “Malcolm and I kind of bumped into each other and we realized that we both wanted the same exact thing at the same exact time, and we both had the resources and the time to put into it so we kind of jumped in with both feet and here we are. It all happened quickly. Our partnership was formed in March and the store was open in June.”
Located at 709 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Damari Savile — “Damari is Malcolm’s middle name and Saville is named after Savile Row in London, where I’m from,” Amin explained — features Amin’s impeccable tailoring philosophy for customfitted suits as well as ready to wear, and is quickly becoming the pinnacle of style sophistication in a city not widely known for its fashion sense.
“Fashion for men is not very prominent here. Philadelphia guys just don’t care as much as guys in other cities,” Amin said. “There are places in the city where you can get custom suits but it just wasn’t what we wanted it to be and it became a lot of time wasted, making the purchase, getting alterations and it became very tiresome. So we just sat down and realized