MAC LEVY, FORMER COAT MAKER, PAST HEAD OF COAT AND SUIT GROUP
NEW YORK — Mac Levy, a retired leather coat manufacturer and former head of an industry trade group, died Friday at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y.
The cause was cancer.
Levy, who was 88, was a partner in Levy-Goldklang Inc. for 43 years until 1982, when he closed that firm and another outerwear venture, Sidley Inc., formed with his younger brother Sidney.
Levy had been president of the New York Coat and Suit Association and was its director until he retired in 1988, negotiating on behalf of coat and suit makers in their negotiations with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
He entered the outerwear market in 1930, working as a shipping clerk while attending City College at night. In 1939, he and the late Milton Goldklang formed Levy-Goldklang. Sidley Inc. was formed in 1946.
Levy also was an active supporter of the industry here, working with former Mayors John Lindsay, Abraham Beame and Ed Koch on efforts to keep the industry in New York.
In the early Seventies, Levy and his partners frequently published trade advertisements urging, “Keep an American working. Buy American-made garments.”
He also created the Garment Center Security Council in an effort to fight crime in the district and was a board member at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Mayor Lindsay awarded Levy the New York City Medal of Honor in recognition of his work.
Levy is survived by his wife, Leonore; a daughter, Barbara Carver, and two sons, Arthur and Donald.