Dao-Yi Chow Takes on Tom Brady

As a native New Yorker, Dao-Yi Chow has dabbled in sports his entire life. He has reminisced about his basketball days at Public School and his tennis passion while working with Sergio Tacchini, and is an avid runner in his personal life. Football was never in his top three sports—which makes sense, New York football teams play in New Jersey. So when Andrew Rosen, whom Chow calls a mentor, and Jens Grede approached him about a new performance and lifestyle brand they were starting called Brady, he thought, “Brady? That’s such an interesting name for a brand.” 

“A couple of weeks into discussing it with them I asked, ‘Brady, you don’t mean like Tom Brady?’” Chow recalls with a laugh. “They were like, yeah, we thought you knew!” And so the Brady brand was born. 

Chow approached the legacy of one of the winningest quarterbacks in the NFL—and one of the most successful athletes in any sport—with an approach squarely rooted outside of fandom. “There’s New England Brady, Tampa Brady, but the brand is really beyond that,” Chow says. “We wanted to create a system of clothing that blends performance and lifestyle, inspired most by his approach to the game.” 

So what does that mean for clothing? For one, there are not really one-to-one adaptations of Brady’s own fashion choices. The inspiration is more abstract, it’s clothing to take a guy throughout the many phases of his day. “In my life, it’s football in the morning, and I train. But then I’m home and I do family things: I go play basketball with my kids outside; go for a walk; then you’re chilling out at dinner,” Brady told GQ. “I wanted to have enough where you could go between different parts of the collection and put things on and they’d feel really comfortable, look good, fit good, and they would fit for whatever occasion you’re heading off to.” 

Chow has worked closely with the quarterback throughout the process and is most excited about the performance apparel and the potential to innovate in that arena. With Brady’s backing, he’s been able to execute design elements for the first time in his career, like a single molded sports knit constructed in one piece, not cut-and-sewn together. A vented anorak jacket takes another of Chow’s obsessions to the next level. “It’s a jacket that I’ve been trying to make my whole entire career,” the designer says, “a rain shell that is wind resistant and water resistant and actually stretches. It’s made of bonded fabric and has a membrane in the back, so you have mobility and range of motion with a very classic shell silhouette.” A pair of hiking trousers are another Chow favorite, though he promises that with each drop the collection will “keep getting better and innovating more.” 

Comparisons are already being drawn between Brady and Jordan, the Nike sub-brand created to bolster the mythology and style of Michael Jordan. To many, Jordan is the GOAT—greatest of all time—but to a new generation of NFL fans, well, you can’t beat Brady.