SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ENTERPRISE : On Pins and Needles : After 70 Years, Family Textile Business Sees Future Unraveling
This time, Allan Franklin and Sidney Penchansky say, they really mean it. If they can’t turn their North Hollywood textile business around in the next few months, the brothers-in-law vow to sell out, ending three generations of family ownership.
“We can’t go on at this rate,” said Franklin, who with Penchansky is vice president of Levine Bros. Inc. Battered by burglaries, a fire, the Los Angeles riots, the recession and the Northridge earthquake, the company’s sales of tailoring supplies and wool fabric have dropped 50% since 1992, he said.
Franklin and Penchansky, who are married to the great-nieces of the brothers who founded the company, are making their last stand in North Hollywood, having ended the company’s half-century in Downtown Los Angeles’ garment district a few months ago.
This is not the first time Levine Bros. has come close to closing. Franklin’s father-in-law, who died in 1990, planned for years to wind it down, convinced that the market for custom tailoring supplies was receding before a tide of ready-made suits. He never quite got around to it.
Two years ago, fire gutted the company’s South Los Angeles Street building, causing $1.5 million in damage to the company. Family members again resolved to sell the assets and close the business. But there seemed to be no end to payments to collect and inventory to liquidate. And there was the problem of selling the damaged store, Franklin said.
Last fall, the brothers got a $500,000 mortgage for a new store on Lankershim Boulevard, hoping the market for custom-made suits would make a comeback.
Franklin, 56, who gave up his printing business to try to salvage Levine Bros., still can’t talk about the decision without pressing his hands to his face. “I guess of the two of us, I’m the optimist,” he said wanly. “I think we can turn it around.”
Since moving to the new location, sales have gained steadily, Franklin said, but the operation is still in the red. He’s hopeful things will turn around soon.
Levine Bros. sells woolen cloth and sewing equipment to custom tailors, alteration shops, dry cleaners, department stores and Hollywood costume houses. Though 70% of sales are by mail order, the company’s highest profit margins and what Franklin calls “the beauty of the business” is in its sales of fine cloth--tweeds, crepes, gabardines and wool cashmeres--to local tailors.
About 15% of sales are related to the entertainment industry; fabric from Levine Bros. has been made into costumes for such movies as “Indecent Proposal” and “Bugsy.”
Franklin is clearly at home selling cloth. He is a man who says he “goes bananas” if there isn’t exactly half an inch of shirt cuff protruding from his sleeve. He used to do window displays for department stores, and although he’s polite about it, he can’t disguise his dismay at what most people consider comfortable attire these days.
He and Penchansky, 48, who gave up his taxi business to run Levine Bros., are hoping that an updated mail-order catalogue, a change in the region’s economy and, if they’re lucky, a revival in custom-tailored clothing will help the company survive.
“It all depends on the next couple of months,” Franklin said, adding that the company needs a 50% increase in its in-store sales this year to put it in the black.
The company they are trying to keep alive was founded in New York in 1923 by six brothers of a Russian immigrant family, said Elaine Franklin, Allan’s wife. The Levine brothers moved in the early 1930s to Los Angeles’ garment district, where the company thrived, even opening branches in San Diego and Long Beach.
The brothers weren’t fabulously rich, but they lived well. They passed the business on to their nephews while still living. The last of the original six was in his 90s when he died just over a year ago.
But the store’s success always hinged on demand for close-fitting, tailored clothes, a demand that has waned in the decades since stars such as Cary Grant wore suits that made their torsos appear as if they were chiseled from stone. “Everyone has decided to wear tennis shoes and jeans,” Franklin said wearily, himself immaculate in a nailhead jacket.
Where the company once had a score of competitors, today there are only about half a dozen companies in the country that cater to custom tailors, Franklin said. Levine Bros. now has 15 employees, down from 25 in the 1970s.
Despite this, Franklin and Penchansky made healthy gains when they took over the business in 1990. They computerized the company, settled old debts, switched to cheaper insurance, doubled the inventory to $800,000 and concentrated on customer service. They were rewarded by a sales increase of about 15% in the first year.
But the Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood was getting increasingly rough. One burglary per month was the norm. Customers were afraid to come to the store because of crime. Those who did often found their cars had been burglarized while they shopped. Employees never dared stay past 5:30 p.m., Franklin said.
Then, on April 19, 1992, two weeks before the riots, the store caught fire. Franklin believes the fire was set by burglars, although fire officials said there was too much damage to determine a cause. The building was unusable, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of inventory was damaged by water. Franklin braved the smoke to carry out a few yards of his finest cashmere blend cloth.
The business took up temporary residence in a leased warehouse near the boarded-up store, surviving on its mail-order business until it moved to its new quarters. “I didn’t want to go Downtown anymore; my heart wasn’t in it,” Franklin said.
Several manufacturers and suppliers have left the Downtown district for some of the same reasons cited by Levine Bros., and that’s a problem, said Barry Sedlik, manager of business retention for Southern California Edison Co., which is looking at ways to keep the garment industry in Los Angeles. He thinks the city must learn better ways to address the problems of small firms such as Levine Bros. or risk losing them.
“It’s very much an industry where you need kind of a critical mass of companies together in one spot,” Sedlik said.
“If someone told us where the garment district is moving, we’d go there,” Franklin said, adding that the company’s new spot in North Hollywood is at least close to many studios’ costume houses.
In the meantime, Franklin is watching for news that the economy is changing, and he’s thumbing through trendy women’s clothing catalogues for signs that the new season will bring a return of the tailored look he favors. In those pages he sees mostly loose-fitting, unstructured jackets and skirts. But he holds out hope that good tailoring, and good taste, will make a comeback.
