George Zimmer seeks to give tailors a makeover with new venture

George Zimmer gained fame from his Men's Wearhouse slogan: "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."

But after being ousted from the company he created, Zimmer is back. He hopes his new business, zTailors, will take the art of tailoring into the 21st century. It sends experienced tailors directly to customers who need their clothes altered.

"We're really just the Uber of tailoring," Zimmer said.

The company will have an app where you can "order a tailor" for an in-home or office fitting. The tailor would then alter the item within a week.

Zimmer, who is zTailors' founder and chairman, said the company has about 600 tailors available currently in 16 states and expects to expand nationwide to 1,500 tailors by the end of the year.

"Tailors are not particularly well-regarded in clothing stores, so their hours are not consistent and tend to be being reduced. So this is a way for tailors to enter the 21st century and hopefully double their incomes," Zimmer said.

Zimmer came up with the idea after getting a sense that tailors needed an advocate.

"I'm either a cross between the godfather or the Pied Piper of tailors. And they trust me. They feel I have their back, and that's one of the things that I think is very important to hourly workers. Not just their wages, but the consistency and whether or not they're secure in their job," he said.

In 2013, Men's Wearhouse fired Zimmer and said later in a statement: "Mr. Zimmer wouldn't accept anything other than full control... and the Board was left with no choice but to terminate him as Executive Chairman."

"Well, that's not accurate, but that's what they said," Zimmer said. "When they decided on this, there really was no discussion. They brought me in and actually said that we're putting your furniture in storage, and you're done."

At the time he was let go, Zimmer said he owned about 4 percent of the company.

When asked if that made him bitter or angry, Zimmer said, "You are for a while. Just hours, not really a long time."

Instead of focusing on the firing, he focused on how to react to the adversity.

"You should not just say, 'gee, I'm a victim and something has happened to me.' You should say, 'alright, what's my second act going to be?'"

While there's no formal tag line for Zimmer's new venture, for now, he's going with, "I got your back."