Bonobos cofounder Andy Dunn describes how he changed his unstylish ways to run a top fashion brand: 'We needed a fashion-startup front man, not a neon orange liability'

• Andy Dunn is the cofounder and former CEO of menswear brand Bonobos.
• In his new memoir "Burn Rate," he details one paradoxical challenge he faced while leading the fashion company: He wasn't fashionable.

How do you run a fashion company if you're not fashionable yourself?

Andy Dunn recalls finding himself in this very predicament as cofounder and former CEO of menswear brand Bonobos in his new memoir "Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind," which hit shelves Tuesday.

In the book, Dunn recalls meeting his Bonobos cofounder Brian Spaly while the two were students at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

"We became fast friends and decided to room together at Schwab, the dorm where most first-year Stanford business school students lived," Dunn wrote. "I admired Spaly. He was better at sports. He was funnier. He had more money. He was self-reliant, disciplined, and frugal. I was none of those things."

As for the most important difference between them, Dunn writes, "What defined our future, though, was this difference: he was fashionable and I was not."

The two went on to launch Bonobos online in 2007, at first only selling pants before offering other clothing items. Spaly was skeptical about Dunn being CEO of the company because of his approach to clothing, according to the book.

"Spaly and I were on a run," Dunn recalled. "He made a comment that should have served as a bit of a warning. 'My only problem with you running this company is you're just not that fashionable.' It was cutting and true."

"But Spaly was right: for a guy running a fashion company, fashion was not my strong suit," Dunn wrote. "I wore weird combinations. We had a thicker orange corduroy pant, with fatter wales, called the F. Scotts. I paired those with a tight-fitting T-shirt I'd bought on eBay, a replica Walter Payton Chicago Bears jersey, matching the orange pop of the Bears' stripes to the pants. As Spaly would say: 'Oh boy.'"

As the two started building Bonobos, Spaly stepped in to lend a hand with Dunn's sartorial style, the book says.

"Spaly started buying me clothing," Dunn wrote. "We needed a fashion-startup front man, not a neon orange liability. He went to a Ralph Lauren sample sale and came back with a light purple cashmere sweater, a half-zip cotton pullover, and a prep school black-and-red embroidered jacket. He'd suggest which pants I should wear with each item and advise me on compatible shoe purchases."

Outside of the book, Dunn has previously spoken about not being particularly stylish. In fact, Bonobos was built partly for men who find themselves in the same boat, he says.

"I'm kind of the least likely person that you could imagine to be a CEO of a fashion company, and yet at the same time I think it's almost perfect, because Bonobos is really built to make it easier for guys to get great clothes," he told the Associated Press in 2017. "We built the brand not only for guys who have great fashion sense, but for guys who need a little bit of help."

In "Burn Rate," Dunn also recounts his experience running a business as someone with bipolar disorder and shares his advice for other business leaders who also have mental illness.