THE LEGENDS OF SEVENTH AVENUE
CHOOSING A SELECTION OF “ALL-TIMERS” AMONG SEVENTH AVENUE’S DYNAMOS IS A TOUGH TASK, BUT THERE ARE THOSE WHOSE APPEARANCE ON SUCH AN HONOR ROLL IS BEYOND QUESTION.
Abe Schrader
Abe Schrader has mixed politics with production and an irreverent wit with a shrewd business acumen to become an iconic figure who might easily symbolize the quintessential garment manufacturer of the 20th century.
Still active today at 100 years of age, Schrader emigrated here from Eastern Europe to become a self-made millionaire. He became best friends with a man who could have been his greatest adversary, ILGWU president David Dubinsky, while becoming a confidante of President Lyndon B. Johnson and an active supporter of the Democratic Party.
Schrader said he made his first million in 1943. A few years later, he made the symbolically long trip from Eighth Avenue, where he had his contracting shop, to the showrooms of Seventh Avenue. He became the founder and chairman of Abe Schrader Corp., which became a $70 million dress and separates company. In 1984, Schrader sold his company, which had gone public in 1969, to Interco Inc. for $38.2 million. Schrader, then in his 80s, continued as chairman, coming into the office on most days.
Fred and John Pomerantz
In seven decades on Seventh Avenue, Fred Pomerantz went from a fabric cutter to presiding over a diversified apparel firm that, at his retirement in 1982, had $250 million in sales. A burly man with a rough-hewn manner and gravelly voice, Pomerantz’s career began in the Twenties, presided over coat, dress and uniform firms using the Pomette and Silver Pom labels.
In 1947, he began Leslie Fay as a dress firm, opening production facilities in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He was known for having a tough hand with retailers, admitting after his retirement in 1982 that he was “the most stubborn bastard in the dress business.”
Fred Pomerantz died in 1986. By that time, his son, John, had established himself as the company’s ceo. By 1991, the company’s volume peaked at close to $900 million.
Then, in late 1992, the company was rocked by an accounting scandal in which two company officials fraudulently reported quarterly figures. In April 1993, Leslie Fay was forced to file for bankruptcy, where it remained for five tumultuous years. The company has revived under new owners, investment firm Three Cities Fund, with Pomerantz still chairman.
Related Galleries
Ben and Jerry Shaw
Known as “Mr. Seventh Avenue,” Ben Shaw gained his reputation pulling purse strings for designers such as Donald Brooks, Norman Norell, Stephen Burrows, Dominic Rompollo, Jane Derby, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio Sant’Angelo and Halston. Along the way, he brought Pierre Balmain to the U.S. and Gloria Vanderbilt to Seventh Avenue.
“He did a little bit of everything, but his best talent was an eye for talent,” his son, Jerry Shaw, said when his father died in December 1988 at the age of 90.
In 1935, he established Elfreda, a dress firm, which continued for almost two decades. Shaw became one of the original partners in the Halston company and when that business was sold to Norton Simon in 1973, Shaw recalled, “we made millions.”
Jerry Shaw began working for his father in 1956 at Jane Derby. A decade later, he and his wife, Syd, who had become Derby’s sales manager, brought in de la Renta, chief designer at Elizabeth Arden and when Derby died a year later, de la Renta’s name remained alone on the label. After Ben Shaw retired, Jerry Shaw and de la Renta became partners. Jerry Shaw retired in 1994.
Ben Zuckerman
Known as the Master Tailor of Seventh Avenue, Ben Zuckerman was that special combination of owner and designer. He was a major influence in leading American women toward more dramatic and colorful coats and suits, Zuckerman closed his company in 1968. He died in 1979 at the age of 89.
Liz Claiborne
When Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg, her husband and business partner, retired on June 1, 1989, they left a legacy of a $1 billion business that helped transform the concept of American sportswear. The couple, along with Leonard Boxer, founded the company in 1976, with a distinct goal: to design clothes for working women.
David Schwartz
David Schwartz got into the up-and-coming business of women’s dresses in 1919 and stayed in it until 1977, when he reluctantly retired as chairman of Jonathan Logan. Known as a man who was consumed by the business, Schwartz acquired the Jonathan Logan Dress Co. in 1937.
In 1960, he was the first to take a women’s apparel company public.
In 1963, Schwartz’s transformation of the company into a conglomerate led to Logan emerging as the victor in its race with Bobbie Brooks to reach $100 million in sales.
Maurice Saltzman
Born in 1919, Maurice Saltzman would emerge as a different type of pioneer while still a young man. The founder of Ritmor Manufacturing, a maker of misses’ dresses under the Barbara Brooks brand, Saltzman changed the name and direction of the company in 1940, when it emerged as Bobbie Brooks.
Bobbie Brooks followed Jonathan Logan to the $100 million sales plateau in the Sixties and, through acquisition and internal expansion, exceeded $200 million in sales by 1980. But the investments soured, leading to a Chapter 11 filing in 1982. It would emerge from bankruptcy a year later. Saltzman stayed on until 1987. He died in 1990 at the age of 71.
Carl Rosen
Shunning the emerging sportswear business in the Sixties to remain focused on the moderate dress trade, Carl Rosen’s company, Puritan Fashions, found itself needing to catch up with competitors such as Jonathan Logan.
In the early Sixties, Rosen was astute enough to get the license for Beatles T-shirts and sweatshirts and sold a bunch of them to J.C. Penney Co. It was a 1977 deal that brought Puritan the license for Calvin Klein jeans and sportswear, propelling it the firm to sales of $250 million in 1981. Rosen died in 1983.
Jerry Silverman
Jerry Silverman, who died in 1984 at 74, was considered one of the most successful dress manufacturers of his time. With designer Shannon Rodgers, Silverman’s dresses and suits were among the top lines at stores such as Bergdorf Goodman.