Search results

Title: Interview with Suzie Aron
Description: Interview with Suzie Aron about her family history in Kansas City's garment industry, beginning with her grandfather Hyman Gordon's immigration to Topeka, Kansas, and later to Kansas City. She discusses Jewish prevalence in the industry, and her family's Frances Gee Garment Company which focused primarily on uniforms for nurses and other woman-dominated professions - a direction taken because it was easier to work with all white fabric. She discusses the company being one of the first with overseas production facilities, having opened factories in Puerto Rico and Japan, as well as other aspects of the company's operations and union relationships, including her experience working on designing and branding uniforms for the fast food industry, work which eventually became the focus of the company.
Date: 2011-02-07
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Mary Lou Chalmers
Description: Interview with Mary Lou Chalmers about her experience working in Kansas City's garment industry from the late 1950s through late 1970s.. She discusses enrolling in the fashion design program at Kansas City Art Institute, as well as taking courses at Fanny Fern Fitzwater School of Fashion Illustration and the Isabelle Boldin School of Fashion, and then working in design and pattern-making at area garment companies such as Nelly Don and Gay Gibson. She describes the process of designing and making clothing, her experiences at numerous companies, the perks of working at Nelly Don, and times that her designs were featured in national magazines. She also discusses the decline of the garment fashion industry in the 1970s, the homogenization of shopping, and the shift to manufacturing in Asia.
Date: 2010-05-07
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Barbara Bloch
Description: Interview with Barbara Bloch about her family's history in the Kansas City garment industry. She discusses her family history in the business, sewing in the factory at 12 years old, and entering the restaurant uniform business by selling aprons to Kelly's Bar in Westport. She discusses the growth of that venture, her later work in direct sales of high-end clothing and accessories, and later opening Her Majesty's Closet, a luxury consignment store in Prairie Village, Kansas. She also notes new and remaining people in the local garment industry, as well as describing the business of operating her consignment store, and they discuss the prevalence of Jewish business owners in the industry.
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Jerry Stolov
Description: Interview with Jerry Stolov about his life and his family's experience in the garment industry at Kansas City Custom Garment Company. He recalls his family's immigration from Poland, and his uncle working at Kansas City Garment Company upon his arrival, and later owned the company. Stolov reports that his father joined his uncle at the company upon his own arrival in Kansas City, and the company staying in operation through the Depression with government contracts for uniform manufacture. The company had post-war success selling custom men's suits and other garments, and Stolov discusses the process of being measured, selecting fabrics, and the ultimate creation of the garments. The company also made uniforms for TWA, the Kansas City Police Department, and other organizations, and Stolov discusses prominent clients including H. Roe Bartle and Harry Truman, who was buried in a Kansas City Garment Company suit.
Date: 2011-07-14
Object Type: Video Recording

Pages