FASHION : A Maverick Who Mocks Trends, but Respects Customers

Allen B. Schwartz was in his men’s boutique, doing one of the things he loves most: selling his a.b.s. clothes.

Or was he?

“I won’t sell this gray jacket,” he told customer Richard Peardon, pointing out that the shoulders didn’t lie correctly.

Peardon then asked to look at topcoats, but Schwartz said, “Don’t buy a topcoat. I have four or five at home. I’ll lend you one.”

It takes a confident man to talk customers out of buying clothing. And that’s Schwartz--a confident maverick in the fickle business of fashion.

His penchant for zagging when other designers zig has helped build his a.b.s. Clothing Collection Inc. into one of the nation’s fastest-growing upscale fashion resources. After just seven years in business, he anticipates sales to department and specialty stores of $33 million this year.

Schwartz has recently proved to be an astute retailer as well. His a.b.s. women’s wear store, which opened in September, 1988, on Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue, is positively jumping. And his men’s store across the street, which made its debut in October, is building a following.

Some of Schwartz’s competitors, merchants of long established stores that have suffered through more than two years of less-than-robust clothing sales, wonder what makes a.b.s. tick.

The answer is, simply, Allen B. Schwartz.

A salt-and-pepper version of James Caan with the actor’s swagger to match, Schwartz is always on the job. With his assistant, Kareen Johnson, he designs the a.b.s. collections, adding new items weekly. He also oversees every aspect of his vast wholesale production (the clothes are made in Los Angeles and shipped nationwide) and spends most Saturdays in one of his boutiques, sounding out patrons.

He describes his clothing as “tradition with a twist, but not too much ‘out there.’ ” And he knows his customer. His hands-on approach keeps him in touch with what they want.

In past seasons, their feedback helped him steer clear of the hemline debacle that plagued other mini-happy retailers. He emphatically nixed any thoughts of mid-thigh skirts with an a.b.s. label. The mini wasn’t for his client, he said.

“She’s a size 8 or 10, . . . has a couple of kids, maybe a little stomach,” he said. “I design for her and try to touch on the trends.”

For women, the look is more than conservative but less than cutting-edge. His a.b.s.suits, dresses, pants, blazers, vests and blouses come in figure-enhancing silhouettes and fabrics such as better quality rayons, rich wools and silks at prices from $110 to $450. The men’s line features $175 shirts, $250 trousers and $650 blazers.

Fortunately for Schwartz, his sense of style has appeal beyond the West Coast. Bloomingdale’s in New York, which has an affinity for things Californian, is about to open an in-store boutique to house a.b.s. designs. Closer to home, the clothes are prominently featured in stores such as Robinson’s, Macy’s, Bullock’s, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Many a.b.s. departments are staffed by the company’s own salespeople, rather than store personnel. Schwartz considers this crucial because his own salespeople are most familiar with his collections and can best represent them to customers.

When he introduced the label in 1982, he geared it toward the lower-priced, contemporary market. Last year, however, he switched to the higher-ticket, bridge department.

“Our choice was to keep moving ahead to compete with the Anne Klein IIs, the Adrienne Vittadinis, the Ellen Tracys,” he explained. Initially, sales suffered in part because of bridge customers’ lack of familiarity with the label. Sales dipped from $24 million in 1987 to $14 million in 1988 but have since rebounded.

Ever an iconoclast, Schwartz, who is 44, said that while growing up in Brooklyn he was “basically a jeans guy with Weejuns and sweaters. But I was also very much into the biker look--then and now. You could never mistake me for preppie. I didn’t relate to the Ivy League.”

An Elvis Presley fan who still sports sideburns, he says of his idol: “He was the best role model in the world. But I also loved Cary Grant, who was elegant with style.” True to this two-edged fashion image, he owns two Harley-Davidsons and drives a Porsche Carrera and a Buick Regal.

The designer credits his mother with getting him on track after what he recalls as a hapless youth. When he was 20, she gave him $100 for a blue suit and $30 for a commuting ticket to New York and told him to find work.

It was an inauspicious start. His first job was in the mail room of Peter Pan Bras, but he soon got laid off and started spending his days shooting pool. Eventually, a friend helped him get a job in the showroom of Russ Togs, where he worked four years and rebuilt his self-esteem.

He then met Jane Tise, who was designing dresses for Esprit de Corp. At the time, Esprit was just a small San Francisco-based company headed by Doug and Susie Tompkins. The Tompkinses wanted Schwartz to be a sales representative exclusively for their lines, in exchange for 20% ownership of the company and 10% commission on each sale.

In one year, Schwartz said, he boosted annual sales from less than $1 million to $3.5 million. But the dress business, he felt, had peaked. Sportswear was the way to go, and Tise agreed. Together, they produced the Sweet Baby Jane line of tops that did very well.

As often happens in the apparel business, disagreements over money arose. Schwartz sued the Tompkinses, claiming that they had reneged on commission payments. Doug Tompkins eventually paid $2 million to Schwartz and Tise to buy them out, according to Schwartz. (A spokeswoman for Esprit, which is now embroiled in an ownership battle between the feuding Tompkinses, said the company would have no comment on Schwartz’s past involvement, except to confirm that he at one time owned 20% of the company.)

“It was devastating to see something we lived, ate and breathed pulled out from under us,” Schwartz said. “I completely lost faith in everybody. In retrospect, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I (realized I) should just do it myself.”

So Schwartz took his money and moved to Los Angeles in 1978, buying a home in Mandeville Canyon. A couple of years later, he quietly started representing small clothing lines and “got the bug back.” He started manufacturing a junior clothing line of his own in 1981. Later, he shifted to contemporary fashions.

Since the move to bridge, Schwartz has been busier than ever. After rising at 4:30 in the morning, he reads newspapers and trade publications then spends time with his 5-year-old daughter, Danielle, and his wife, Pam.

Then he hits the road, visiting local factories. From 7 to 11 a.m., he and Johnson work on designs and fittings. He then confers with executives in the company’s New York office.

Schwartz also frequently travels to Nice, Paris and St. Tropez for design inspiration and to scout fabric sources. On the spur of the moment, he will take the family for a weekend sojourn to New York or a skiing vacation in Aspen.

He also manages to spend several hours a week playing tennis on his home clay court, often with his friend and tennis partner O.J. Simpson.

With the success of his two a.b.s. stores, Schwartz is pondering additional locations, with the possibilities including Pasadena, Long Beach and Palm Springs. But he cautions, “I’m a wholesaler first and a retailer second.”

Yet Schwartz clearly believes that there’s time to do it all properly.

“There’s a central tradition to clothing,” he said. “If you’re two blocks ahead of the parade, there’s no parade. But if you’re half a block or a quarter of a block ahead, you’re OK.”

Schwartz plans to be a step ahead of the pack.