Long before he ever picked up a needle and thread, Tylen Butler was picking up a blade. As an elite competitive épée fencer, Butler spent years traveling to national competitions, standing among racks of masks, gear, and equipment, but never once finding a piece of clothing that actually spoke to the sport he loved.

Fencing, one of the oldest disciplines in the Olympic Games, had somehow never produced a brand of its own, no signature aesthetic, no cultural presence, nothing that bridged the strip and the street the way basketball, tennis, or golf had for their respective communities. So Butler decided to build it himself.

What started as sketches and slogans eventually became TAB DEPT, a fencing-inspired luxury brand built entirely from Butler’s own pocket, with no outside investors and no existing playbook to follow. Working out of Charlotte, he built manufacturing relationships across Italy, Spain, and Dubai, secured federal trademarks with the USPTO for the brand’s wordmark and its signature lunging fencer logo, and signed the brand’s first sponsored athlete along the way.

Butler is now heading into his most ambitious chapter yet: an FW’26 collection anchored by MASQUE, an original signature print pulled directly from the fencing mask itself, alongside the brand’s debut leather goods line and its first major brand event.

Butler talks with The Quintessential Gentleman about creating an entirely new category by hand, staying independent, and what it means to chase gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics while building a brand at the same time.

What was the exact moment you realized nobody was making apparel for fencers?

I had the idea about a year after I started competing nationally at NACs. You go to these competitions and there are only vendors for equipment. Masks, blades, gear. No merch. Obviously there was random fencing merch out there, random sellers with shirts that said ‘fencing’ or ‘en garde’ across the chest, but it was generic and plain. Like I always say, nothing a fencer would actually wear, and nothing someone outside the sport would wear either.

So fast forward a few years and I started brainstorming, sketching, rendering the logo and the clothing designs. As a solo founder it’s a lot of work building a brand from scratch with no blueprint. I was literally creating a whole new genre and style. TAB DEPT is truly the first of its kind, so there was nothing to look at and say, ‘do it like that.’

I came up with hundreds of slogans for this brand. Be En Garde is the one that resonated. It’s crazy how adding one word, like ‘be,’ can change the whole philosophy and meaning of something. En garde is a command in a bout. Be En Garde is how you carry yourself. We launched TAB DEPT in 2024.

How has competing in épée shaped your approach as a designer?

Technique, discipline, and control. Skill and detail. And confidence. Every piece takes real time to develop, and everything about it is real. I want you to feel confident when you wear TAB DEPT. I’ve gotten reviews from customers telling me they feel good and confident wearing it, and that means the world to me. The clothes are supposed to do something for you, not just sit on you.

The biggest thing I carried over is quality over quantity. I think back to training with my head coach Alexei, God rest his soul. He was serious about the quality of your parries and your blade work. We could run a drill twenty times and he didn’t care how many reps you got through. He cared about the precision of the blade, the precision of the footwork. Doing it right once mattered more than doing it fast twenty times.

That’s exactly how I build. I would rather get one piece correct than push out ten that are close enough.

How do you see TAB DEPT shifting perception and opening doors for the next generation?

Access and visibility are the whole thing. A lot of people, especially people of color, don’t know anything about fencing beyond what they’ve seen in movies, TV, etc. Nine times out of ten when I tell someone I’m a fencer, they tell me I’m the first fencer they’ve ever met. Every time. It’s funny, but it also tells you exactly where the sport sits.

Kids don’t know because they’ve never seen anyone who looks like them fence, and they’ve never had the access or the opportunity. I want to be that bridge. Not just fencing in fashion, but fencing in culture, for the next generation.

What I love is how the brand opens the door. People who have never picked up a blade support TAB DEPT and understand Be En Garde, because guarding your mind, your heart, and your spirit is something anybody can carry. They come for the philosophy and then they ask about the sport. That’s the order it has to happen in.”

What has the reality been like building this brand completely without outside capital?

It takes time and dedication that people don’t see. There’s a belief that starting a clothing line is a get-rich-quick move. It isn’t. And we’re not just making a line. We’re building a real brand, a movement, a world that hasn’t existed before.

You win some and you lose some until you find the manufacturer you’ve been looking for. I’ve lost personal investments sourcing for this brand. You can get scammed. A manufacturer promises a timeline and doesn’t deliver, or the quality comes back wrong, or the shipment sits in customs. There are a lot of factors you have to watch for when you’re doing it alone with your own money.

What I learned is that you have to be thorough in your vetting and patient enough to walk away. Ask for samples before you commit. Start small before you go big. Check references. And when something feels off, trust that, because the money you save by ignoring it is never worth what it costs you later.

Every one of those losses taught me something I use now. That’s the part nobody puts in the highlight reel.

Why was securing federal trademarks a priority for you from day one?

Protect what’s yours. That’s one of our sayings, and how can we tell people to do that if we don’t do it ourselves?

I truly believe in this brand and this message, and I knew early that what I was building was new. When something is new and different, people try to take it. Unfortunately, people steal ideas and concepts all the time, and I’ve seen it firsthand with my own brand. Since I started TAB DEPT, I’ve watched other concepts and brands pop up, and it’s not a coincidence. And we’re still in our early stages of development.

I’m all for inspiring people. That’s part of why I’m doing this. But deliberately copying a concept this specific isn’t authentic, and it isn’t building anything of your own.

So protecting the brand and its vision was a key move early. We hold federal registration on Be En Garde, and our lunging fencer logo registered with the USPTO on September 1st, 2026. That was the same day we launched our Kickstarter, which felt like God was confirming something.

My advice to young creative founders: file before you launch, not after you get copied. It isn’t cheap, but it costs less than what you’ll spend fighting someone who took your work. And I’m still in the early stages with people already trying to copy me, which is honestly insane, lol. But that’s the job. Stay on guard, protect your peace and protect what’s yours.

How do you keep the authentic fencing identity intact as you scale into luxury fashion?

From the beginning, there were always going to be three stages, just like there are three weapons in fencing. Foil, épée, and saber. Each one has its own rules, its own timing, its own personality, but they’re all still fencing. That’s how I think about athletic wear, streetwear, and luxury. Different disciplines, same sport.

The identity stays intact because it isn’t decoration. It’s in the construction. Our MASQUE print comes from a photograph I took of a fencing mask’s steel mesh. Our leather goods, COQUILLE and PLASTRON, are named after actual fencing equipment. The LA BELLE fencing shirt is built from the construction language of competition gear. The paneling, the seam placement, the way a jacket is cut to move with a lunge instead of against it.

As long as every piece has to come from the sport to exist at all, it can’t drift.

What was the design process behind creating your signature print, MASQUE?

I wasn’t stumbling onto it. I went looking for it. I knew TAB DEPT needed a signature print. Every house has one, and I wanted ours to be unique and real to fencing, but also recognizable on its own. Something you could see across a room and know it was us, whether or not you’d ever heard of the sport.

So I sketched and rendered endlessly. Direction after direction. Nothing was landing, because most of it was either too literal or had nothing to do with fencing at all. Then I came back to the mask.

The mask made sense immediately once I saw it that way. It’s the most recognizable object in the sport, and it’s the one piece of equipment that’s actually about protection. Be En Garde is about guarding what’s yours. The mask is that idea in physical form. And the mesh itself has real texture, real geometry, a grid that was already beautiful before anyone did anything to it. I photographed it myself.

Getting it from a photograph to a print took a couple of months. A photo of steel mesh doesn’t just become a pattern. You have to work the scale, the contrast, the repeat, until it reads as fabric instead of as a picture of metal. Too tight and it turns into noise. Too loose and it stops feeling like a mask.

We went through about ten to fifteen versions before it was right. That’s the part people don’t see. It looks simple now, which is exactly what I wanted, but simple is what takes the longest.”

What can audiences expect from the upcoming LA BELLE collection?

LA BELLE is our FW’26 and SS’27 collection, and it’s the deciding touch. In fencing, la belle is the final point when a bout is tied and everything comes down to one exchange. That’s the moment that decides who you are. It felt like the right name for the collection that moves us into luxury.

I’ll be straight about where it stands, because I’d rather be honest than sell something that isn’t finished. The apparel is ready. The LA BELLE fencing shirt is built from the construction language of competition gear. The paneling, the seam placement, the way a jacket is cut to move with a lunge rather than against it. Our campaign edition tee is 260gsm cotton, embroidered rather than printed, made only for this run.

The leather goods are in active development. Right now they exist as digital renders and concepts, not as pieces I can hold. We’re building two constructions in parallel: one in genuine leather with steel hardware, and one in a technical route using a structured double-knit that holds its dimension the way performance gear does instead of collapsing the way fabric usually does.

We haven’t chosen between them yet. That’s deliberate. This is the part of the collection I’m least willing to rush, and it’s exactly what our Kickstarter is funding: the sourcing, the prototyping, and rejecting whatever fails. There’s no version of that work that goes faster by spending more money on it.

So what your audience can expect is the process, not just the reveal. We’re showing every stage of it. The campaign is live now, and the people backing it are the reason these pieces will exist at all.”

How do you balance high-level athletic training with running every facet of a brand?

Easier said than done. Some days I don’t feel like doing much of anything. Consistency and discipline are what carry me, and keeping the end goal in front of me.

Designing, manufacturing, communications, web development, sourcing, outreach, marketing, creative direction. All of it is me. There’s no team to hand something to at midnight. So the day doesn’t really have a shape. It has priorities, and whatever is most urgent gets the hours.

People see the wins and the finished product. Nobody sees the all-nighters, the blood, sweat and tears, the hard work and the self-doubt that comes with it. I say it all the time: I hate to lose more than I like to win.

I know to some people my goals sound like a dream and to others they sound like wishful thinking. But I believe what I’m building will change lives, that it will become a multi-million, if not billion dollar, brand, and that it will change how people see fencing. And take gold in Los Angeles 2028, of course. Both of those are the same goal to me. Neither one happens without the other.

Something I’ve learned along the way is that not everyone has your best interests at heart. There are people watching, ‘friends’ and ‘family,’ who have never once said a word of encouragement. Nobody is obligated to support you, and I mean that. But if someone truly believes in you, support, a share or a word costs them nothing. When it never comes, that tells you something worth knowing.

That’s Be En Garde in practice. Guard your peace. Put your time and energy toward the people who actually show up, and let your work speak. Sooner or later I won’t have to say anything at all. The brand and the wins will do all the talking.

Check out more from TAB DEPT below and shop here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of TAB DEPT.