Sweaters for Cold Climes From Sunny San Diego

Sweater designer Ani Barrie used to loom her wool sweaters with a view of snow-capped mountains in a ski resort where her product warmed friends and customers in winter weather.

Today, she rarely sees a San Diegan in a Barrie original, but Southern California’s balmy weather has proved to be a productive environment for her small manufacturing business, which has doubled its revenues since she set up shop here.

A company president who would rather design sweaters than run a business, Barrie credits her contacts as much as her talent for the growth of her small business. Without them, she concedes, she might still be teaching school.

The Michigan native and her artist husband came to San Diego from Aspen, Colo., in 1982 for a temporary stay. Hooked by the weather, they stayed on, and Barrie moved her “mini” business to San Diego in January, 1985.

Revenues have risen sharply from $215,000 in all of 1985 to $310,000 for the first six months of this year.

Barrie knitted her first ski hat when she was 5 and started designing her own sweaters when patterns for right-handed knitters proved difficult for a left-handed child. Her company now sends her wool and cotton sweaters, loomed and finished by hand, to about 250 stores across the country--including Nordstrom, Buffums and Pappagallo.

The number of employees has increased from 1 to 11 in 18 months “and we are looking for another worker right now,” she said.

Barrie said San Diego has provided a more productive work environment than Aspen.

“It is pleasurable to work, you don’t lose days because it is snowing out,” she said. “I think I am more productive here.”

In February, she moved her factory from a 700-square-foot space in Hillcrest to a 1,400-square-foot facility in the MBS Studios downtown on G Street, where she recently opened a small showroom to sell samples to the public.

Aside from her $22,000 annual salary, Barrie plows all profits back into the business, which operates on overlapping seasons. Barrie’s workers are now churning out Christmas sweaters adorned with Angora snowmen and reindeers, while she is designing sweaters for next spring’s line.

“I keep dumping the money back in and keep buying more supplies,” she said. “It is the nature of the business, it keeps gobbling itself up.”

Barrie acknowledged that she has grown without a plan, relying on the advice of others.

“I never sat down with a plan that drives you ahead; it just evolved,” she said. “It’s developing a growth pattern of its own in spite of me.”

Barrie was an art teacher in Chicago, moonlighting in textile weaving and design, when an Italian manufacturing company offered her a job in the early 1970s.

A few years later, she packed “three looms and hundreds of pounds of yarn” into a trailer and headed to Aspen for what she thought would be a yearlong vacation. She ended up staying four years.

At first, she sold sweaters to sporting goods stores in Aspen and Vail, and to “conservative, high-priced men’s and women’s stores” in Denver.

Her break came when a bank asked Barrie if she wanted to buy a ski apparel company that had gone bankrupt. “I said I would buy it if the bank would give me a nice loan,” she said.

The bank loaned her $48,000 and she bought half the company’ inventory and product orders for $18,000. The rest went into production.

“It scared me to death,” she said. “That was the turning point. I had people working for me in Denver, then Dallas, New York and Atlanta.”

Barrie’s newly acquired company, Ani Barrie--Aspen Clouds, shipped $75,000 in sweaters the first year. In the second year, Barrie concentrated on her own designs--and sales dropped.

When she came to San Diego, she “sat out” a couple of seasons, thinking the stay here would be brief. With her mother-in-law, she knitted sweaters for a few Colorado stores from a rented Del Mar house from 1982 through 1984.

By that time, her temporary stay had became permanent, and, 18 months ago, Barrie opened her new firm. Inspired by a Los Angeles clothing representative, and by her first hire here, Michilee Ethington, who now heads production, Barrie’s firm began to grow.

Now Barrie is free to return to her design table, looming a new line of “dressier” sweaters that retails for up to $300.

“It is almost embarrassing,” she said. “I have always been lucky enough to come in contact with somebody who knew a lot more than I did, and liked me enough to give me encouragement.”