How Financial Advisor Phil Serra Dresses Like a Million Bucks
The 12 months is 1989. Phil Serra, who is in his mid-20s at the time, has just taken on a new part as an account executive at Merrill Lynch, the wealth and investment management division of Financial institution of The usa. Naturally hunting to dress for accomplishment at his brand name-new career, the Detroit indigenous decides to use one particular of his very first paychecks to buy a single-breasted blue suit from Cicchini Customized Clothier in Birmingham.
30-4 several years afterwards, the 59-year-previous West Bloomfield Township resident is however heading powerful at Merrill, where he has risen to come to be a wealth administration adviser, as very well as running director of his own team of advisers under The Serra Team.
In this place, he assists clientele set and satisfy aims, “whether it’s securing a property finance loan on a new household, finding a line of credit for company, or helping the next era get begun with budgeting and money preparing,” he claims. Serra also serves as an ambassador for Improved Income Behavior, a absolutely free finan- cial schooling platform from Lender of America, by which he encourages fiscal literacy at local faculties.
To this working day, Serra purchases all his gown dresses from Cicchini, crediting the late founder, Paul Cicchini, and the shop’s group for preserving him sharp around the earlier 4 decades.
Below, Serra talks about all issues fits and additional.
My personal fashion is …
Business enterprise chic. [My style] has gotten a very little significantly less official, but I even now dress in a tie. I’m hardly ever without a vest with all my fits I have on to do the job and to consumer dinners, I typically include a custom-made vest.
What’s your all-time favourite appear?
I phone it the “Frank Sinatra jacket” — I’m 100-% Italian and absolutely obsessed with Frank Sinatra tunes. It is a pink athletics coat with a delicate, black checker print that I bought about 10 a long time in the past. I wear it a ton. I like to pair it with a awesome pair of black slacks and a coordinating purple vest.
I just can’t depart the house without the need of …
A pocket sq. in my sporting activities coat. And a excellent angle to start out the working day!
On experimenting with hues and prints:
I left community accounting to go after a occupation on Wall Street, and I wanted to have conservative colours. I begun with a ton of blues and grays. And only in the previous 10-15 several years, have I ventured out to extra trend- able types and hues, if you will. I believe just receiving a lot more included with dinners, charities, and entertain- ing, I desired to broaden the collection of fashions and colors in my wardrobe. I have received a inexperienced-ish outfit I wear for the duration of the spring, specifically on St. Patrick’s Working day, and then some houndstooth sports coats.
My beloved 10 years of men’s vogue:
It would be the 1950s-’60s, through the Rat Pack [era] … Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. I go to the annual Vehicles & Cigars Smoke Detroit charity celebration each individual year, and I use my favorite “Rat Pack outfit” with a fedora.
Exactly where I like to wine and dine:
Nonna Maria’s, a incredibly quaint, little Italian restaurant in West Bloomfield. Nonna Maria’s is owned by my good friend John Gallagher. His loved ones opened it again in the mid-’70s, and he’s [since] taken more than and rebranded it. It is a terrific spot to have a consume, a magnificent put to eat and entertain or just take a person out.
In which I go to take pleasure in the arts:
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a godsend. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but it’s this kind of a treasured institution. I went there 2 times to see the Van Gogh in The united states show, [which ended in early January]. I check out to go to the DIA at the very least when or 2 times a calendar year.
My favourite new music genre is …
Most likely tender rock. Staying born and raised here in Detroit, I’m a diehard Bob Seger admirer. Sure, I enjoy Frank Sinatra, but near and expensive to my heart is Bob Seger.
How financial advising has impacted me:
It is humbled me, it is energized me, and it’s established in me a new stage of passion that drives me to give back way much more than I have gotten out of it.
Understand far more about Serra’s fiscal expert services at fa.ml.com.
This story is from the February 2023 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. Read through extra in our electronic edition. Verify out even extra trend suggestions from attractive metro Detroiters at HourDetroit.com.
