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smokyjoesclothing-blog · 3 years

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A Chicago Garmento’s Story

I loved going to Art’s Grill when I was a kid. Art’s Grill was a steamtable deli and lunch spot in Chicago’s garment district in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. Art, the owner and the man operating the meat slicer had a couple of fingers missing. I went through the line with only one hope. That Art would look at me, hold up a stub of an index finger and say, “remember kid, safety is number one”. OK, there was always a chance that you might find more of Art’s digits in your corn beef sandwich but the show was worth it. Owners, credit managers, cutters, pattern makers, models and more frequently lunched at Art’s. The noise level was about the same as a jet engine. Art’s location was right around the corner from our family coat business’s offices, design room and shipping room at 209 South Jefferson in Chicago. It was 1965. I was 14 years old. I worked for $1.25 an hour and at that time, I would have to say that I was getting the better of the deal since I really was pretty useless.

Back to Art’s. It is fair to say that this was not always an enlightened crowd. Most of the owners were old Jewish guys. My Dad, who was in his mid-40’s at the time was “the kid” as was everyone else under 70 years old. Any other ethnicity was referred to as “the Greek cutter over at Wilson Garment” or in other significantly less fortunate terms. There were women who worked in the office and then there were models who sometimes doubled as the owner’s mistress. Even at 14 years old, it did not take long for me to figure out which women worked in the office and which ones were models and girlfriends. The skin tight Capri pants, filmy blouses and keyhole front dresses were a dead giveaway. There were few if any gentile business owners in Chicago’s garment district and almost no women outside of the office workers and the previously mentioned models/girlfriends. There was no such thing as a female pattern maker. There were very few female sample makers. A female designer? Impossible.

Chicago then, as it is now, was different from any other garment district. The owners seemed to all hate each other. People spoke harshly about anyone else that was cutting cloth. This was something that I did not experience in New York. New York was cutthroat, yes, but people were civil and even friendly to each other. Los Angeles was the place the people who failed in New York and Chicago went. Everybody in LA lied to each other but they did not necessarily hate each other. Lying is sort of a sport in Los Angeles then and now. There were other significant garment districts in many of the major cities in the United States from before WWII into the beginning of the 1980’s. Each one with its own strengths and characteristics. Among them, Kansas City was inspiring and something that is badly missed in today's industry. St. Louis, Cleveland (Bobbie Brooks!), Denver and others were colorful and productive.

My Dad and Uncle had friends in the coat business in New York and in Kansas City. They spoke to them over the phone on a regular basis. I do not remember any of the Chicago manufacturers who were friendly with each other. Amazingly, this “era of bad feeling” has continued to this day. It has transitioned over to the indie designers and uniform manufacturers in today’s Chicago. It would be nice if somehow this mindset could be cured here in the “City of Big Shoulders” (and small minds). Don’t hold your breath.

Continuing with your tour of a 1965 garment company. In the shipping area (maybe 25,000 square feet) there was a large chalkboard with columns of order numbers, due dates and units. Each column had a sometimes easy to decipher code name. Henry (Sears), Draw (Montgomery Wards), Sam (J. C. Penney) and other national chains all had their own columns. At this time, Penney’s and Sears were our biggest customers. We also sold about 2,000 specialty stores. The specialty store orders were on order forms that were stapled to long pieces of thick cardboard and kept in State by State order and sorted by city within the state all in huge wooden bins. There were order callers and order pickers. My Dad and Uncle would dive right in and call orders when they weren’t busy doing twenty other things. In fact, no one was above physical work except those in the design room which was off limits to the unskilled and unknowing (me). For a brief time, we had a designer that drank. We had to only use the morning patterns since the afternoon patterns were generally askew.

Most of the coats sold by our family were what were then called half sizes which in today’s terminology would be a plus size petite. In 1965, coat manufacturers were generally specialists of some kind. Rainwear… fur trimmed coats … precious fiber … fake fur and so on. Our size range was 10 ½ t 24 ½ as well as occasional super sizes which were sizes 46 to 52 and missy coats from 10 to 20. Now we never really made 10 to 20 missy sized coats (until the early 1980’s). We just retagged the coats that were 10 ½ to 20 ½ 10 to 20. Retagging these coats was my favorite part of the job. I was proud that my family was able to ship so many missy coats that were never really intended to be missy coats. Amazingly, there were stores that loved these coats which were generally a good fit for Ms. Pacman.

In 1965 the “car coat” was just overtaking the long coat or dress coat as we transitioned to an automobile society. “Car Coats” were also called “Pant Coats” as pants were starting to replace dresses and skirts as a basic part of a woman’s wardrobe. Somewhat dressier versions of these short coats (31” to 34” long) were called “toppers”. Coats that we slightly longer were called “strollers”. Many long coats sold at this time were trimmed with real fur. Fur trimmed coats topped out at $49.75 wholesale. Terms were then 8/10 eom which stood for 8% discount if paid by the 10th of the month. Stores were widely credit worthy. No one would think of paying for a purchase with a credit card and in fact, there were no “bank” credit cards. Credit cards of the day were Diner’s Club, Carte Blanc and American Express.

While we shipped from a downtown Chicago location, we had moved our factories about 50 miles west of Chicago into towns like Geneva, Batavia and Aurora, IL. My Father was partners with his brothers. My Dad handled sales while one Uncle ran the factories and one Uncle ran his brothers. It was an interesting dynamic. My Father was significantly more jovial than his brooding brothers for which his sons and my Mom where certainly grateful.

Looking back on it, it is amazing how many men wore ties. Cutters and male tailors all wore ties. Women’s office attire was just at the very beginning of featuring some casual elements, none of which were allowed in the office of the family coat business. Clunky shoes and varicose veins were standard issue. This office was also devoid of tight capri pants, filmy blouses and keyhole dresses. There were no girlfriends here. This was hardcore women’s coat business at its best.

There was one thing about Arbetman Brothers and Blair, Inc that was unusual for the time. It had a data processing room. “The boys” as my Dad and Uncles were commonly known, were backwards in certain ways but quite progressive in others. In fact, the man who ran the data processing room was an African American which while an everyday thing today, was unusual the garment district in any of America’s larger towns in 1965. Almost all of the employees were there for decades. Looking back, it is hard to believe that they lived that long since everyone smoked and ate greasy food.

Every morning, a big 18-wheel tractor trailer pulled into the loading dock downstairs and unloaded the previous day’s production from the two or three factories in the far western suburbs of Chicago. There would be 1,400 to as many as 2,000 coats that arrived every day, Monday through Friday. The coats had to be unloaded, brought up the freight elevator, counted and sorted into the thousands of coats that were well organized and hung on three stories of pipe rail. All this happened very quickly. I of course was asked to stay out of the way.

Usually at the end of the day, my Dad and his brothers would recount the day’s events with my Uncle that ran the factories coming in over a speaker phone. There was a dynamic to this that is missing in the development of today’s apparel. My Uncle that ran the factories barely wanted to attach the sleeves. My Father, being the sales guy, always wanted a terrific product for a low price. The three of them slugged it out in the most productive manner. Occasionally, top stitching on a pocket would disappear or the factory would have to find a way to make the coat out of slightly less fabric. They had amazing instincts. Customers for the most part, loved them.

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