History

In 1944, Kristoffer and Lucille Nedrebo began as tailors in a small shop in Madison, Wisconsin. Four years later they opened a store on State Street in order to be closer to the University of Wisconsin campus.

This proved to be a very wise move. Within just a few years Kristoffer and Lucille began a thriving business renting tuxedos for fraternity parties. Initially they rented mainly black tuxedos, but soon expanded to white dinner jackets.

Eleven years later, Nedrebo’s launched into the wholesale business. A former UW student living in Janesville, Wisconsin had ordered some tuxedos for his wedding from W.G. Bullis, a Janesville men’s store. Bullis had the tuxedos shipped up from Chicago, as they’d always done. However, the student was very disappointed with the poor fit. He told Mr. Bullis that he’d always received great fitting tuxedos from a place called Nedrebo’s when he was a student in Madison.

W.G. Bullis re-ordered through Nedrebo’s and drove up to Madison himself to make sure everything was taken care of to his satisfaction. Everything was perfect. Kristoffer started calculating the possibilities, and soon a new wholesale business was born. He hit the road to sign up more wholesale accounts and was extremely successful.

The company forged ahead on both the retail and wholesale fronts. While the State Street location continued to prosper, the Nedrebo’s warehouse was moved to Madison’s Beltline Highway in 1969 to accommodate a larger wholesale operation and include a second retail store.

When Kristoffer and Lucille retired in 1979, the company was purchased by a local Madison couple. They soon opened two new retail locations in Madison. In 1987, as the business continued to grow, the warehouse was moved to its current location on Verona Road in Madison.

Nedrebo’s now ships out of a 48,000 square foot warehouse. The company supplies quality formalwear for every occasion to 10 retail stores in 3 states, as well as over 500 bridal and fine menswear stores throughout the Midwest.