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Hanging On by a Thread
  
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Changing Tastes and Increasing Competition Alter the Los Angeles Street Suit Scene
by Ryan Vaillancourt
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - For decades in Los Angeles, men in search of high-quality suits at bargain prices knew to come to Los Angeles Street. These days, the street is still a menswear hub, with three blocks lined with suit clad mannequins, though finding top-notch threads is no longer so easy.
Since the late 1950s, the stretch between Seventh and Ninth streets has been lined with haberdasheries. In the second half of the last century, the block was anchored by a quartet of standout shops: Max Levine and Son, Academy Award Clothes, Eisenberg and Eisenberg and Roger Stuart Clothes, plus numerous other competitors.
Today, Roger Stuart Clothes is the only one of the four still standing, and that’s because the founder’s son and current owner has significantly altered the area’s old business model. Academy Award Clothes shuttered in late 2008, following Max Levine about 15 years earlier, and Eisenberg and Eisenberg, which called it quits in the mid 1970s.
Plenty of other shops are on the street, but if an old patron of, say Max Levine, returned to modern Los Angeles Street, the area’s inventory might make him choke on his martini. Though some shops still stock the high-quality wool suits the street built its reputation on, now the block is peppered with bargain stores hawking polyester suits at too-good-to-be-true prices.
Roger Keller, whose father Milton founded Roger Stuart Clothes in 1969, can point to a culprit from his shop at 729 S. Los Angeles St. Right across the street is a store advertising two suits for $99.
Historically, Keller said, the street’s shops tinkered with the same basic business model: Buy quality garments from companies that sell at slightly less than wholesale price, so the merchants could make a profit selling at the real wholesale level. The Los Angeles Street stores targeted wholesalers who sourced their suits from reputable fabric mills and pattern makers in New York. The resulting product would be similar to well-known designer names, but cheaper because they were branded under a lesser-known moniker, he said.
In the last 10 years or so, however, the two for $99 deal has become ubiquitous. For that price, the buyer gets garments fashioned from polyester or rayon (and sometimes mislabeled as wool), and at some shops the deal comes with a shirt, tie and pocket square. Most of those garments are made in China.
The cutthroat competition isn’t the only reason for the change. Experts point to a general shift in men’s fashion, and like in most retail-oriented industries, the rise of the big box stores.
Still, those who made a life in the Los Angeles Street suit corridor can’t help but express a sense of regret.
“It’s a shame,” Keller said.
S Factor
The most direct challenge to the old way of doing business comes from the two-for-99ers. At least that’s how Keller sees it. He charges that the bargain hawkers amount to unfair competition because they market synthetic suits as wool — a practice he says is allowed by a loophole in the federal act regulating the labeling of wool imports.
Consumers can usually identify the quality of a wool suit by what is known as its S number: The unit, generally printed on the sleeve, indicates the diameter of the threads of wool, and usually ranges from the Super 100s to the Super 200s. The thinner the thread (and the higher the S number), the higher the quality of the garment.
On a recent afternoon, three stores near Roger Stuart boasted racks of suits labeled as Super 120s and Super 140s. They also had sewn-in labels with generic Italian names. But the interior pockets of those suits had tags detailing the fabric composition as 100% polyester, or sometimes a polyester and rayon blend. Another tag behind the collars proclaimed “Made in China” or “Made in Mongolia.”
When questioned about the S number on the sleeve, shopkeepers at Marco Ferno, Romantic Fine Men’s Clothing and New York Town Clothing all claimed that the S number does not necessarily indicate a wool garment, and that it could refer to the quality of the alternative material.
The federal act that regulates the labeling of synthetic textiles does not contain a reference to S numbers, said Steve Ecklund, an investigator in the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement division. Nor is there a law prohibiting shops from attaching an S number to synthetic garments. The only thing that could bring about prosecution, he said, would be if consumers were being misled by the inclusion of the S number label on synthetic suits.
“If it’s deceptive, it’s illegal,” Ecklund said. “That’s really the bottom line.”
Keller, whose suits range from $129-$950, harnesses some bitterness toward the competition. So does Max Simonian, who opened the suit store Tutto Italy Connection on the street five months ago (he owned another Los Angeles Street shop for 15 years before that). He charged that the apparent bargains are bad deals for consumers, who end up with a suit that doesn’t last.
“They catch some of the better customers who don’t know any better,” Keller said. “My beef with it is a guy who wants a legitimate suit but doesn’t know the difference — I can’t fault a guy for being ignorant. He’s never had the education. Nobody has ever said this is synthetic, this is wool, and this is better and here’s why. And so he buys a piece of garbage.”
But one shopkeeper at a store offering the two for $99 deal, who declined to be identified, brushed off the notion that shops like hers compete with Roger Stuart or the other stores selling higher priced suits.
“If you buy it cheaper, you can sell it cheaper,” she said. “People who come to buy here have their budget, and we meet that. These people who come here aren’t going over there to pay $200 on a suit. It’s a different customer.”
Offending Raymond Chandler
In addition to the local challenges, there are changing fashions: The mannequins who live in Los Angeles Street’s windows used to sport mostly classic numbers, sometimes with a vest, maybe a hat too. Now, they also wear ruby red, pinstriped suits with double breasted coats and needle sharp, faux alligator skin shoes — the kind of ensemble that would make Raymond Chandler roll over in his grave.
But the sharpest nail in the suit merchant’s coffin, said fashion historian Kevin Jones, who curates the museum at the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandising, is the simple fact that men hardly wear suits anymore, unless they work in an office tower or are attending a formal event.
In mid-century Los Angeles and before, “The only time you wouldn’t wear a tie is if you were lounging at home or at a seaside summer holiday,” said Jones. “Otherwise, you dressed appropriately according to where it was you were going to be. Today, what we consider appropriate is what we’re comfortable in.”
Those who miss the suit and hat aesthetic can, in part, blame the Vietnam war and the post-Kennedy hippie movement it helped spawn, Jones said. With the onset of flower power and homemade sundresses, and sometimes a preference for no clothes at all, American youth saw the suit as a symbol of the establishment.
These days, Jones said, America is a jeans society. Most men who need a suit for the big interview or their cousin’s wedding are more likely to go to big box stores such as Men’s Warehouse or 3 Day Suit Broker.
“It’s the take-out window mentality,” Jones said. “Our generation, what we’re used to is not going and having a suit made with our dad…. Now you can get everything taken care of for you in an hour and then they’ll mail it to you, and that can be anything from a formal tux to a sport suit.”
Of course, the old guard has not completely gone away in Downtown. In addition to shopping malls such as Macy’s Plaza, many men, especially those who work in the Bunker Hill office towers, still patronize standbys such as GB Harb & Son or Brooks Brothers.
Measuring the Future
As Keller has watched his main competitors and colleagues on the street fold, he said he has survived in part by evolving. Instead of settling for the suits that the largest producers and distributors were offering, he basically created the store’s own line, branded as Emilio Yuste, contracting with fabric mills and pattern makers in Italy. His goods are manufactured mostly in Italy and Spain.
The company also created its own wholesale division, housed in the upper floors of a neighboring Los Angeles Street building, from which it ships suits, coats and slacks to some 250 stores nationwide.
He sees Roger Stuart persisting, though he admits business is tough.
Peter Kaplan, who ran Academy Award Clothes (his father, Jules Kaplan, opened the shop in 1950), shuttered the shop after more than a decade of declining sales. Plus, for the 70-year-old businessman, it was simply time to hang up his measuring tape.
As for the prospects of the suit making a comeback, Jones, the FIDM Museum curator, sees a possibility. He’s observing more men in vintage suits, or new suits inspired by vintage designs, a trend he credits in large part to the influence of cultural vehicles like cable network AMC’s hit series “Mad Men.”
“My thought is, how trendy is this going to be?” Jones asked. “Things continue to evolve, and Lord willing 50 years from now what we’re talking about will be irrelevant. It will have morphed into something else because that is life and that is fashion.”
Contact Ryan Vaillancourt at ryan@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 01/25/2010
©Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
Since the late 1950s, the stretch between Seventh and Ninth streets has been lined with haberdasheries. In the second half of the last century, the block was anchored by a quartet of standout shops: Max Levine and Son, Academy Award Clothes, Eisenberg and Eisenberg and Roger Stuart Clothes, plus numerous other competitors.
Today, Roger Stuart Clothes is the only one of the four still standing, and that’s because the founder’s son and current owner has significantly altered the area’s old business model. Academy Award Clothes shuttered in late 2008, following Max Levine about 15 years earlier, and Eisenberg and Eisenberg, which called it quits in the mid 1970s.
Plenty of other shops are on the street, but if an old patron of, say Max Levine, returned to modern Los Angeles Street, the area’s inventory might make him choke on his martini. Though some shops still stock the high-quality wool suits the street built its reputation on, now the block is peppered with bargain stores hawking polyester suits at too-good-to-be-true prices.
Roger Keller, whose father Milton founded Roger Stuart Clothes in 1969, can point to a culprit from his shop at 729 S. Los Angeles St. Right across the street is a store advertising two suits for $99.
Historically, Keller said, the street’s shops tinkered with the same basic business model: Buy quality garments from companies that sell at slightly less than wholesale price, so the merchants could make a profit selling at the real wholesale level. The Los Angeles Street stores targeted wholesalers who sourced their suits from reputable fabric mills and pattern makers in New York. The resulting product would be similar to well-known designer names, but cheaper because they were branded under a lesser-known moniker, he said.
In the last 10 years or so, however, the two for $99 deal has become ubiquitous. For that price, the buyer gets garments fashioned from polyester or rayon (and sometimes mislabeled as wool), and at some shops the deal comes with a shirt, tie and pocket square. Most of those garments are made in China.
The cutthroat competition isn’t the only reason for the change. Experts point to a general shift in men’s fashion, and like in most retail-oriented industries, the rise of the big box stores.
Still, those who made a life in the Los Angeles Street suit corridor can’t help but express a sense of regret.
“It’s a shame,” Keller said.
The most direct challenge to the old way of doing business comes from the two-for-99ers. At least that’s how Keller sees it. He charges that the bargain hawkers amount to unfair competition because they market synthetic suits as wool — a practice he says is allowed by a loophole in the federal act regulating the labeling of wool imports.
Consumers can usually identify the quality of a wool suit by what is known as its S number: The unit, generally printed on the sleeve, indicates the diameter of the threads of wool, and usually ranges from the Super 100s to the Super 200s. The thinner the thread (and the higher the S number), the higher the quality of the garment.
On a recent afternoon, three stores near Roger Stuart boasted racks of suits labeled as Super 120s and Super 140s. They also had sewn-in labels with generic Italian names. But the interior pockets of those suits had tags detailing the fabric composition as 100% polyester, or sometimes a polyester and rayon blend. Another tag behind the collars proclaimed “Made in China” or “Made in Mongolia.”
When questioned about the S number on the sleeve, shopkeepers at Marco Ferno, Romantic Fine Men’s Clothing and New York Town Clothing all claimed that the S number does not necessarily indicate a wool garment, and that it could refer to the quality of the alternative material.
The federal act that regulates the labeling of synthetic textiles does not contain a reference to S numbers, said Steve Ecklund, an investigator in the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement division. Nor is there a law prohibiting shops from attaching an S number to synthetic garments. The only thing that could bring about prosecution, he said, would be if consumers were being misled by the inclusion of the S number label on synthetic suits.
“If it’s deceptive, it’s illegal,” Ecklund said. “That’s really the bottom line.”
Keller, whose suits range from $129-$950, harnesses some bitterness toward the competition. So does Max Simonian, who opened the suit store Tutto Italy Connection on the street five months ago (he owned another Los Angeles Street shop for 15 years before that). He charged that the apparent bargains are bad deals for consumers, who end up with a suit that doesn’t last.
“They catch some of the better customers who don’t know any better,” Keller said. “My beef with it is a guy who wants a legitimate suit but doesn’t know the difference — I can’t fault a guy for being ignorant. He’s never had the education. Nobody has ever said this is synthetic, this is wool, and this is better and here’s why. And so he buys a piece of garbage.”
But one shopkeeper at a store offering the two for $99 deal, who declined to be identified, brushed off the notion that shops like hers compete with Roger Stuart or the other stores selling higher priced suits.
“If you buy it cheaper, you can sell it cheaper,” she said. “People who come to buy here have their budget, and we meet that. These people who come here aren’t going over there to pay $200 on a suit. It’s a different customer.”
In addition to the local challenges, there are changing fashions: The mannequins who live in Los Angeles Street’s windows used to sport mostly classic numbers, sometimes with a vest, maybe a hat too. Now, they also wear ruby red, pinstriped suits with double breasted coats and needle sharp, faux alligator skin shoes — the kind of ensemble that would make Raymond Chandler roll over in his grave.
But the sharpest nail in the suit merchant’s coffin, said fashion historian Kevin Jones, who curates the museum at the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandising, is the simple fact that men hardly wear suits anymore, unless they work in an office tower or are attending a formal event.
In mid-century Los Angeles and before, “The only time you wouldn’t wear a tie is if you were lounging at home or at a seaside summer holiday,” said Jones. “Otherwise, you dressed appropriately according to where it was you were going to be. Today, what we consider appropriate is what we’re comfortable in.”
Those who miss the suit and hat aesthetic can, in part, blame the Vietnam war and the post-Kennedy hippie movement it helped spawn, Jones said. With the onset of flower power and homemade sundresses, and sometimes a preference for no clothes at all, American youth saw the suit as a symbol of the establishment.
These days, Jones said, America is a jeans society. Most men who need a suit for the big interview or their cousin’s wedding are more likely to go to big box stores such as Men’s Warehouse or 3 Day Suit Broker.
“It’s the take-out window mentality,” Jones said. “Our generation, what we’re used to is not going and having a suit made with our dad…. Now you can get everything taken care of for you in an hour and then they’ll mail it to you, and that can be anything from a formal tux to a sport suit.”
Of course, the old guard has not completely gone away in Downtown. In addition to shopping malls such as Macy’s Plaza, many men, especially those who work in the Bunker Hill office towers, still patronize standbys such as GB Harb & Son or Brooks Brothers.
As Keller has watched his main competitors and colleagues on the street fold, he said he has survived in part by evolving. Instead of settling for the suits that the largest producers and distributors were offering, he basically created the store’s own line, branded as Emilio Yuste, contracting with fabric mills and pattern makers in Italy. His goods are manufactured mostly in Italy and Spain.
The company also created its own wholesale division, housed in the upper floors of a neighboring Los Angeles Street building, from which it ships suits, coats and slacks to some 250 stores nationwide.
He sees Roger Stuart persisting, though he admits business is tough.
Peter Kaplan, who ran Academy Award Clothes (his father, Jules Kaplan, opened the shop in 1950), shuttered the shop after more than a decade of declining sales. Plus, for the 70-year-old businessman, it was simply time to hang up his measuring tape.
As for the prospects of the suit making a comeback, Jones, the FIDM Museum curator, sees a possibility. He’s observing more men in vintage suits, or new suits inspired by vintage designs, a trend he credits in large part to the influence of cultural vehicles like cable network AMC’s hit series “Mad Men.”
“My thought is, how trendy is this going to be?” Jones asked. “Things continue to evolve, and Lord willing 50 years from now what we’re talking about will be irrelevant. It will have morphed into something else because that is life and that is fashion.”
Contact Ryan Vaillancourt at ryan@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 01/25/2010
©Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of ladowntownnews.com.
Vani Kumar wrote on Jan 26, 2010 4:57 PM:
" Being the owner of a women's suit store, The Suit Closet, here in downtown LA, I would have to say that the suitlook is look that is here to stay. Its classic, polished and NEVER going away. In LA, we do see the business casual look working its way into the dresscode but it is definitely not so much the case from as near as SF and most definitely not the case on the east coast. Hang on Roger Stuart - keep up the great work! "
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