Want to shop with the ultra rich? The entry fee is $12,000

“My whole life, I’ve been trained to say yes. Every request, every customer," Bijan says, sitting in his wood-paneled studio just five minutes off Rodeo Drive. When Bijan heard I was without a car in the public-transportation desert that is Los Angeles, he offered to lend me his own 1971 Porsche for the day. (I declined.)

That over-the-top, crash-my-car-please hospitality can only come from someone who has spent roughly half his life catering to the fabulously rich and extremely demanding. This was his birthright: Bijan’s father was Bijan Pakzad, a larger-than-life Iranian immigrant who founded House of Bijan in 1976 as an appointment-only Rodeo Drive temple of $65,000 croc-skin luggage, $15,000 vicuña coats and $120,000 chinchilla bedspreads. Over nearly four decades, Pakzad built the store into a destination for the ultra-rich. He parked a canary-yellow Rolls-Royce outside and appeared in ads smoking cigars with Michael Jordan and palling around with Bo Derek. House of Bijan developed a reputation for being the “most expensive store in the world," before Pakzad died in 2011 and left it all to his youngest child, a then 19-year-old Nicolas.

Today, the younger Bijan is 33 and trying to slip free from his father’s long shadow with an even more exclusive proposition: a members-only apparel brand. NB44, which he launched in 2021, costs $12,000 a year to join—a fee that doesn’t cover a single item of clothing.

The medical world has concierge doctors. The golf world has elitist ivy-walled clubs. NB44 is just that approach, but for the clothing world. Behind its closed doors, members get an all-in-one packaging of styling, networking, shipping, bespoke designs and even dry-cleaning. The cost is steep, but for 1 percent of the 1 percent, it’s a convenience worth the price.

Bijan believes his dad would be proud. “What I’m doing today is the 2024 version of what he did when he was my age," he says.

Dressed neatly in elastic-waist white trousers and a camel sweater, not a hair out of place, Bijan cuts a far quieter figure than his father, a distinction that speaks to the way the luxury market has shifted. This is not an era of neon lizard jackets and logo-laden button-ups, but of subtle cashmere ball caps, whisper-quiet unstructured sport coats and knit polos—all of which are on offer at NB44. The company designs the clothes, styles them as outfits and ships them four times a year directly to members’ homes in personalized, racing-green trunks. It’s like Ken doll shopping for the Davos set.

According to Bijan, over 5,000 people have filled out the prospective member questionnaire on NB44’s site. Just under 100 have been admitted, more than half of whom are under 40. Many members are centered in predictable wealth hotbeds: Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, London, New York and Los Angeles. But they are also from places Bijan has never even been to, like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Nashville.

Discretion is also part of the appeal. Bijan doesn’t ask what members do for a living when they apply, and unlike his father, Bijan declines to boast about celebrity clients. Photos on Instagram that tag the brand suggest that Kris Jenner’s partner, reality star Corey Gamble, and music executive Elliot Grainge are members. Grainge’s wife, Sofia Grainge, has been spotted in NB44’s crewneck sweaters. (Representatives for Grainge and Gamble confirmed they are members.)

“Our consumers really want something that other people aren’t wearing," says Bijan. To illustrate, he points out a $9,000 overcoat hanging on a rack. It’s deep red on the outside, brighter red on the inside, with cuffs that are designed to be turned up. It’s something only one client on earth will have—something they can brag about at the Polo Lounge. “It’s an immediate conversation starter for them," he says.

“FORGIVE ME if this sounds rude or crass or anything like that," Bijan says, but the reason he perfectly understands what super-rich men want is because he is one.

Bijan is the youngest of three, and Pakzad’s only son. His parents were divorced and Bijan was raised in multimillion-dollar homes. He drove expensive cars and shopped regularly at haute-streetwear label Chrome Hearts. After high school, he attended Pepperdine University in pristine Malibu.

One day, during his sophomore year, Bijan drove to his father’s house. He found the fashion icon in a troubled mood. His dad wondered if all his success had spoiled his son. “I’m so worried about you," his father told him. “What are you going to do when you’re 30 years old?"

This heady conversation would be the last time they would speak. Pakzad suffered a stroke four hours later and died two days after that.

Barely out of high school, Bijan was left in charge of the shop. “The weight of the world was on my shoulders from that point forward," he says. He had apprenticed in the store as a teen but was never meant to take over the company so soon. For a few years, he kept up college at night, but he dropped out in his junior year.

For the next decade, Bijan steered his father’s company ably. His personal Instagram page shows him at the boutique beside Jeff Bezos and Bill Clinton. During the 2018 trial of ex-president Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for tax and bank fraud charges, court filings showed Manafort spent $334,000 at the House of Bijan between 2010 and 2012.

“I was very comfortable in my life," says Bijan. He moved into his own Beverly Hills mansion and married Roxy Sowlaty, an interior designer and a former star of the reality show Rich Kids of Beverly Hills. The pair now have two children.

But over time he itched to build something of his own. “I didn’t want to wake up one day and not have built my own legacy," says Bijan. “I had much grander ambitions."

Bijan was also maturing in a far different era of luxury, one in which online shopping had become the norm. He didn’t want to startle House of Bijan’s clientele, used to the white-glove treatment they received in store. “What was I supposed to do? Call up the sultan of Brunei and say, ‘Well, you know, we’re doing boxes,’ " says Bijan. “He’d be like, ‘What the hell are you talking about? I’ve been buying my suits from you for 40 years.’ "

Three years ago, as he reached the 30th birthday his father was so concerned about, he started NB44, a nod to his lucky number, but also a reference to 1944, the year Pakzad was born. He remains a shareholder in House of Bijan but is not involved in day-to-day operations.

His grand idea was a luxury label centered not around a physical shop but an app. “I don’t want the traditional trappings of traditional High Street brick-and-mortar retail," says Bijan. “The world is changing."

So you want to be an NB44 member?

First you’ll have to fill out a survey on the company’s website. “How much do you estimate you spend on clothing annually?" it asks. “Which of the following NB44 benefits do you find most interesting?" The styling services? Meeting other members? Handmade craftsmanship?

It helps to know someone. The survey says that “NB44 aims to prioritize registrations that include a referral." Early on, many members got wind of the company through social media—Nicolas has 162,000-plus followers on Instagram—but of late, it’s the rich-guy whisper network that is bringing in interested shoppers.

The vetting process is loose. Bijan and his team don’t ask for financials or recommendations, though one prospective member had American Express send a letter on his behalf. (He was admitted.) Members I spoke with said it took as long as a year to get off the wait list.

NB44’s 10-person team uses questionnaire data to shape a collection for each member, producing every idiosyncratic wool bomber, suede sneaker and alligator belt in Italy. Finished clothes are shipped, as complete outfits, to wherever customers are staying. “We want to make it as easy and convenient for people as possible," he says. As Bijan knows well, the wealthiest among us can be a needy bunch. “We have members message us on a daily basis—like, no joke, sometimes three times a day: ‘What should I wear with this? What should I wear with that?’ " says Bijan, who notes that 25 or so members have his personal cell number.

For many members, a prime benefit isn’t even the clothes but networking. In April, NB44 hosted an invitation-only dinner on the office’s teak deck overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Like Friars Club roasts and yacht club regalias, these evenings have emerged as a kind of secret rendezvous for men who have paid for the privilege of buying supremely expensive clothes.

Bijan keeps a box of Cubans by the sliding glass door of that studio—just another hospitable touch for members when they stop by.

Write to Jacob Gallagher at jacob.gallagher@wsj.com