Pam Guedoura (right) with her mother Shirley at the Dover location of Tuxedos and Suits With Style (Photo by Matthew J. Mowry)
Over the past four decades, Fredj and Pam Guedoura have seen fads and styles come and go, but they have been a consistent presence in downtown Dover, helping customers look their best for proms, weddings, and celebrations. Now they are seeing the second and third generations of families coming through their doors.
“We have built up a loyal clientele,” Pam says. They are sending their kids in for prom or their first suit. That is a wonderful feeling.”
Tuxedos and Suits With Style, with locations in Dover and Portsmouth, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Fredj, originally from Tunisia, is a tailor by trade, who trained in France and Switzerland. He met Pam when the computer company she worked for sent her to conduct trainings in Sweden and she walked through the door of the shop he worked in to have a suit tailored.
When she moved back to her hometown of Dover a year later, she brought Fredj with her and they married. She left the software company to help her new husband open a suit store in the former Masonic Temple Building in downtown Dover before moving two years later to their current Central Avenue location in Dover and adding tuxedos to their offerings.
“At that time there were a lot of chain stores, offering suits and tuxedos,” Pam says, adding that having a tailor in house has been key to the success of Tuxedos and Suits With Style as well as “keeping it a small family store. Our service brought us longevity.”
Within a couple of years, they added the Portsmouth store and expanded the Dover location. “Without Fredj’s ability to tailor and our people skills, I do not think this business would be here,” Pam says.
Entering the shop, visitors are warmly greeted by Pam or her mom, Shirley. Pam guides customers through the selection and fitting process, while Fredj, when not tailoring, can be found in a cloud of steam making sure everything is perfectly pressed. “I love people. To be able to help them and make them smile makes my day,” Pam says.
The business offers 3,000 tuxes and 250 styles of suits in a range of sizes. “We rotate them and continue buying,” Pam says of the store’s extensive inventory. “We do things right here. [Customers] know the people here will take the product through to the end.”
In it’s 40-year history, the biggest challenge the couple faced was the global COVID pandemic in 2020, which shut down the economy and the store in March, just before wedding and prom season. “It could not have been a worse time for us,” Pam says. “The income was just shut off.”
It took a year and half for their business to recover as weddings and proms were slow to come back. Many of their competitors did not survive. Because Tuxedos and Suits With Style is a family business, it was not eligible for most of the federal COVID assistance loans, but Pam says state funds for small businesses helped.
In 2021, the couple saw a huge surge in business as weddings that had been postponed were rescheduled in addition to the new brides planning their weddings, Pam says. “Our competition was sending people to us because they couldn’t handle [the volume],” she says.
Online shopping is now their biggest competition, which is why their service is vital, Pam says. “A guy will walk in here with a suit he bought online, and nothing fits, and we tailor it and show him everything we have here,” Pam says. And while tuxedos continue to be popular for weddings, the store has seen an increase in the number of grooms opting for suits.
As for the future, the couple hopes one of their three children will want to take on the business. “They are not ready to commit to that yet,” Pam says. “To give this to somebody would be a great thing.” For more information, visit tuxedoswithstyle.com.
