A Michigan-born menswear brand built around stretchy, athletic-fit dress clothes has planted its flag in Boulder. State and Liberty opened its third Colorado store at the Twenty Ninth Street shopping center, bringing suits, blazers, dress shirts and dress pants designed for muscular builds to an active, health-conscious city.
The new shop joins two existing Denver locations as the company pushes further into Colorado, according to BizWest. State and Liberty now operates more than 40 locations, per the company's own release, a footprint built on a performance-fabric gimmick aimed squarely at men with athletic frames who've struggled to find off-the-rack dress shirts that actually fit.
Co-founder Lee Moffie said the company looks to grow in active, thriving cities where its products resonate, calling Boulder an active, health-conscious community — the same pitch BizWest attributes to him in announcing the opening. That framing tracks with the brand's origin story: State and Liberty was founded in 2015 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by Moffie, a former University of Michigan hockey player who later skated professionally for the South Carolina Stingrays and Denver Cutthroats, and co-founder Steven Fisher, after the pair struggled to find off-the-rack dress shirts that fit athletic body types, according to Wikipedia. The company name refers to an Ann Arbor intersection, and Moffie and Fisher met through Order of Angell, a senior honor society, according to Wikipedia.
The Fabric Behind the Fit
What separates State and Liberty's dress shirts and tailoring from a traditional cotton suit is a stretch blend, typically 92% polyester and 8% spandex, engineered to be moisture-wicking, machine-washable, wrinkle-resistant and four-way stretchable. The brand specializes in performance fabric clothing designed for men with athletic builds, per its company release cited by BizWest, substituting synthetic stretch materials for the stiffer woven cotton found in conventional menswear.
The performance apparel market specifically was valued at $45.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to expand to $47.7 billion in 2026, with Fact.MR forecasting a 5.2% compound annual growth rate through 2036.
Why Boulder, and Why Now
Boulder's identity as an active, health-conscious community makes the location choice less of a gamble than it might look elsewhere. That's the kind of customer base a brand built on athletic fit is designed to chase.
State and Liberty's first two Colorado outposts were both in the Denver area. The Boulder store marks the company's move north into a city with its own distinct identity, even as the brand frames its expansion strategy the same way: grow where its products resonate with an already-active population.
At Twenty Ninth Street
The Twenty Ninth Street shopping center is a 683,000-square-foot open-air lifestyle center operated by real estate investment trust Macerich.
It's not the only health-forward addition to the center this year. Hoodline previously reported that True Food Kitchen plans a Boulder debut at the same shopping district, part of a broader pattern of wellness-oriented brands clustering at Twenty Ninth Street. State and Liberty has said it plans to expand its presence in Colorado with a third store, a milestone the Boulder opening now fulfills, according to BizWest's reporting.
