Founder Profile
John Van Heusen
Last reviewed: September 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Background
John Manning Van Heusen held a profoundly rigorous, highly technical background in advanced textile engineering, complex fabric weaving, and mass-scale apparel innovation. Operating as a fiercely capable inventor who spent years meticulously experimenting with advanced loom techniques, this incredibly intense foundation in structural fabric design provided the exact technical mastery required to successfully pioneer the massive Van Heusen collar.
Founding Story
John Manning Van Heusen was an absolutely brilliant American inventor, fiercely innovative textile engineer, and the profoundly influential co-founder fundamentally responsible for the incredibly revolutionary apparel technology that massively defined the PVH empire. Operating as an incredibly talented textile developer, Van Heusen aggressively recognized the massive, agonizing physical discomfort of the heavily starched, stiff collars mandated by early 20th-century menswear. In 1919, he relentlessly patented an incredibly advanced, highly flexible 'self-folding' collar that required absolutely no starch. By fiercely partnering with the Phillips-Jones Corporation to aggressively manufacture and distribute his massive invention, his absolutely rigorous technical execution completely revolutionized global menswear. His massive engineering legacy permanently secured his name within the multi-billion dollar PVH monopoly.