I first got this idea for a custom clothing business while living in Bombay India. After graduating from the University of Hawaii, I went to claim my bride, a famous Indian movie star who gave up her career to help me pursue my dream.
I arrived in India thinking of myself as well dressed. I’d sold and modeled clothes in high school and college and thought I looked pretty good in a suit, until I met some Indian movie stars who looked like a million dollars in the incredible fit of their custom made clothes. I promptly visited Bombay’s leading tailor, got measured up, ordered a suit and couldn’t believe the incredible difference in fit from my expensive off the rack suits. With my own personal pattern established, it was unbelievable that he could send me perfect fitting clothing without my having to visit him for fittings. I decided to bring this concept home to share with Americans.
We returned to Los Angeles and I got a job playing the piano at night, went out during the day telling my story and it was an instant hit! While I was out selling, my wife Raju began taking the reins of running the business. Within 2 years we had 12 salespeople visiting offices, selling several hundred suits each month. The last one we hired was a charismatic kid named Mark Hughes who left us after two years and started a company he called Herbalife. From the first day, everything he touched turned to gold!
In 1974, with this sales staff propelling our business, we opened our shop in Beverly Hills. With a double storefront, I began designing sample suits and jackets for the front windows and we placed ad t in the new popular LA Magazine often featuring famous sports figures as our models. This sample collection, gave people the opportunity to see completed designs, but without the normal compromise that comes with the purchase of off-the-rack clothing. This sample style collection has become the basis of many hundreds of our client’s wardrobes.
About 5 years into our business I dreamt up a concept of a Wardrobe Plan Program. To this day The Wardrobe Plan Program has many 20 to 30 year loyal ongoing participants who have enjoyed regular selections of new clothing flowing into their wardrobe made to their personal pattern and at some amazing savings.
In the late 1970s we opened a shop in San Francisco, which we had for 25 years, right in the financial district on Geary Street near Union Square. It was the “gem” of San Francisco: a penthouse suite with a city view, fireplace, mezzanine, hand painted dome ceilings and all gorgeous wood paneling; once the private in town residence of the wealthy turn of the century entrepreneur who built his own building.
San Francisco got too casual with the dot com days so I headed for Las Vegas and with the fastidious image and generous endorsement of a high profile good friend and client, we built a Nevada clientele of several hundred of the most successful people in Nevada: casino owners, CEO’s, entertainers, top political people, and a host of amazing entrepreneurs who embraced the concept of “dressing for success”!
This has been the most rewarding profession, in many cases “transforming” the images of some of the world’s most successful people, just as I felt transformed in India. Our loyal following of clients who have turned to us throughout their entire careers, often bragging of not having purchased a single suit elsewhere, since having received their first custom suit. Many have never required a single alteration, nor have we seen them personally for 20 or 30 years, yet they have trusted us to dress them at a distance giving us their complete confidence in many cases allowing to select and to design every fabric and style. It’s the ultimate compliment! We will continue to make our talents and experience available to those who would like to experience this dying art of custom tailoring in it’s original form, not to be taken for granted as permanent in this new world of compromise.
I arrived in India thinking of myself as well dressed. I’d sold and modeled clothes in high school and college and thought I looked pretty good in a suit, until I met some Indian movie stars who looked like a million dollars in the incredible fit of their custom made clothes. I promptly visited Bombay’s leading tailor, got measured up, ordered a suit and couldn’t believe the incredible difference in fit from my expensive off the rack suits. With my own personal pattern established, it was unbelievable that he could send me perfect fitting clothing without my having to visit him for fittings. I decided to bring this concept home to share with Americans.
We returned to Los Angeles and I got a job playing the piano at night, went out during the day telling my story and it was an instant hit! While I was out selling, my wife Raju began taking the reins of running the business. Within 2 years we had 12 salespeople visiting offices, selling several hundred suits each month. The last one we hired was a charismatic kid named Mark Hughes who left us after two years and started a company he called Herbalife. From the first day, everything he touched turned to gold!
In 1974, with this sales staff propelling our business, we opened our shop in Beverly Hills. With a double storefront, I began designing sample suits and jackets for the front windows and we placed ad t in the new popular LA Magazine often featuring famous sports figures as our models. This sample collection, gave people the opportunity to see completed designs, but without the normal compromise that comes with the purchase of off-the-rack clothing. This sample style collection has become the basis of many hundreds of our client’s wardrobes.
About 5 years into our business I dreamt up a concept of a Wardrobe Plan Program. To this day The Wardrobe Plan Program has many 20 to 30 year loyal ongoing participants who have enjoyed regular selections of new clothing flowing into their wardrobe made to their personal pattern and at some amazing savings.
In the late 1970s we opened a shop in San Francisco, which we had for 25 years, right in the financial district on Geary Street near Union Square. It was the “gem” of San Francisco: a penthouse suite with a city view, fireplace, mezzanine, hand painted dome ceilings and all gorgeous wood paneling; once the private in town residence of the wealthy turn of the century entrepreneur who built his own building.
San Francisco got too casual with the dot com days so I headed for Las Vegas and with the fastidious image and generous endorsement of a high profile good friend and client, we built a Nevada clientele of several hundred of the most successful people in Nevada: casino owners, CEO’s, entertainers, top political people, and a host of amazing entrepreneurs who embraced the concept of “dressing for success”!
This has been the most rewarding profession, in many cases “transforming” the images of some of the world’s most successful people, just as I felt transformed in India. Our loyal following of clients who have turned to us throughout their entire careers, often bragging of not having purchased a single suit elsewhere, since having received their first custom suit. Many have never required a single alteration, nor have we seen them personally for 20 or 30 years, yet they have trusted us to dress them at a distance giving us their complete confidence in many cases allowing to select and to design every fabric and style. It’s the ultimate compliment! We will continue to make our talents and experience available to those who would like to experience this dying art of custom tailoring in it’s original form, not to be taken for granted as permanent in this new world of compromise.
