Leroy Menswear is a snug little shop downtown that's been around for 30 years. Gold records and squiggly neon signs cover the walls, bringing pizzazz, and near the entrance is an earnest selection of casual dress wear. The sets are summery and lightweight, with roomy cuts, their pale fabrics embedded with the same faintly shimmering pinstripes as luxury pajamas. But the store is best known for its collection of pimpy apparel: three-piece suits the color of pink cotton candy, gleaming polyester shirts, and cuff links made with chunky jewels. The man responsible for all of this is Leroy Shumate.

Leroy is immediately gregarious, and he enjoys everyone he meets. He's filled with lively stories—and he watches the street as he tells them. There's the time he drove to California to buy a six-pack of Coors Light, for instance. And the friend of his who was shot in the face, though the bullet hit the metal frame of his glasses, saving him.

While I was there, Leroy was busy collecting new friends and selling clothes, when suddenly a man burst in. He communicated not in words, but in otherworldly shrieks and patches of laughter. I'd been studying a suit jacket's richly elaborate front pockets. (They involved layers of flaps, offset with contrasting edge stitch, and glitzy shank buttons for drama.) Leroy was swift and politely steered him away. "Oh, he drops in now and then," Leroy said warmly, and it was clear that Leroy liked him just the same as everyone else.

Past clients happen to include Tracey Barnes, known as "America's pimp." He'd come in and casually "point to a dozen things he wanted. The next morning, he'd send someone to pick them up." He's since been busted, though, and court sessions reveal Tracey in a series of powerfully unglamorous moments: beating women, recruiting a girl waiting for her school bus. He died in prison a few years ago.

Leroy Menswear is also popular with aging rockers such as Carlos Santana. He was in recently and on a purchasing bender, buying all but a couple of short-sleeved dress shirts teeming with beads and sequins, the print a bizarre, spidery paisley. Also, Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac: "He was trying on clothes and walking around the store in his underwear, then he'd wander outside so he could see himself in the window reflection. I figured he was a nut. We get a lot of them in here," said Leroy.

Mick's reps gave Leroy a signed head shot, and behind the frame, Leroy tucked the Polaroid he'd taken that day: It shows a pale, spindly man in white boxers with a three-quarter-length jacket and vest—the fabric swirling with gold. He looks about seven feet tall.

Attention, makers of fashion and workers of garmentry: Tell me what you're doing at mjonjak@thestranger.com.