Meet Joe Boxer

Out-of-money rock 'n' roll musician founded $100-million underwear empire

Published: Sunday, January 31, 1999

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The savvy marketing whiz who parlayed a pair of yellow smiley-face underpants into a multimillion dollar novelty phenomenon known as Joe Boxer has a confession to make: He doesn't wear them.

''I never wear ties. I never wear underwear, either,'' Nicholas Graham confides, letting out a peal of laughter as he runs a hand through a vertical shock of yellow hair.

Making light of underwear has made Joe Boxer Corp.'s ''Chief Underpants Officer'' -- as he calls himself -- a very rich man.

His latest venture, due out in the next few weeks, the Undo-Vendo, vending machines that dispense the trademark Mr. Lickys in a pop-top can.

''For some reason underwear really fits with my character,'' Graham says, throwing his head back with a wild guffaw.

Some of his favorites: inflatable underwear (''Great for river rafting!''), 3-D underwear (''So funny!''), a pair that quacks and another that reads ''no, no, no'' in daylight and ''yes, yes, yes'' at night.

Where does Graham get his ideas?

''There's a Microsoft program you can use. It's called Underwear 4.0,'' he says coyly.

And the process? ''It's either Prozac or Viagra, depends on the day of the week.''

To say he is wacky is an understatement.

A native of Calgary, Canada, Graham was a 27-year-old rocker looking for a way to make money when he started designing ties in 1985. He taught himself how to sew and set up a machine in the corner of his band's San Francisco studio.

He sold his ties at specialty shops and department stores, then concocted a pair of X-rated boxers for a store buyer as a wedding gift. She urged him to keep going.

He stuck a raccoon tail on a pair of red plaid boxers and called them the ''Imperial Hoser.'' They sold ''like mad'' at Saks Fifth Avenue, and Joe Boxer was born.

''People just saw it and laughed their heads off,'' he recalls.

Behind the giggles and guffaws is a marketing genius. His empire has expanded to sleepwear, children's wear and sportswear sold in more than 4,000 U.S. stores and seven nations. He has a staff of 140 and puts growth at 40 percent for each of the last five years. He expects sales for the privately held company to exceed $100 million this year.

Pretty good for an aspiring rock star looking to make a little money on the side.

''I've never had a job in a traditional sense,'' says Graham, now 40. ''But I've had a couple of room service jobs, and that's when I'd see people in their underwear. That's what triggered me to do underwear.'''

While Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss use sex to sell their skivvies, Joe Boxer simply wants to make you laugh.

''It makes you smile. It's not serious,'' he says.

Graham has pulled off some crazy stunts trying to build Joe Boxer into a brand identity. He dressed up as a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic Airways and got 400 travelers to change their underwear mid-flight.

He launched a rocket in Nevada that shot out two pairs of underwear -- one Joe Boxer, the other a Russian brand.

He staged a fashion show in Iceland complete with sheep and Vikings.

In February, he'll outfit a New York City taxi with fares going to breast cancer research. This is no ordinary cab: it'll have satellite TVs and scratch-and-sniff maps -- tomato sauce for Little Italy, grass for Central Park and incense for St. Patrick's Cathedral.

His 14,000-square-foot New York showroom is now called the Manor but it's anything but stuffy. Walk in and you are faced with an 8-foot-tall revolving banana, funhouse mirrors, talking walls and a conference table with ''Blah, Blah, Blah'' splashed across the top.

What goes on there? ''Nothing!'' Graham chortles.

