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Title
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Interview with Alice Nast Statland
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Description
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Interview with Alice Nast Statland about her husband Nat Nast. She recounts her husband's history, their move to Kansas City, and his desire to go into the sport shirt business, and his later shift to specializing in bowling shirts. She discusses the business's popularity through the 1950s and '60s, and diversified into caps, jackets and other promotional apparel, and was sold by the family in the early '70s. The brand was revived as Nat Nast Luxury Originals menswear line by their daughters several decades later and garnered a lot of media exposure. She also notes that original Nat Nast shirts could command two to three hundred dollars at the time of the interview.
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Ann Brownfield
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Description
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Interview with Ann Brownfield about her experience as a designer Kansas City and other Midwestern cities. She recalls her start designing shoes in St. Louis, later teaching pattern-making in Grand Island, Nebraska, and working in sportswear, coat, and suit design at Brand and Puritz after moving to Kansas City in 1960. She describes opening her own factory in Kansas City, Kansas, designing and sewing small collections for a variety of clients, including making warm-up suits for the 1972 US Olympic ski team; and her later closure due to the decline of skilled sewing machine operators. She also discusses the decline of the local industry, manufacturing moving overseas, and later working in retail, giving tours of the old garment district, and beginning to collect clothing and other items from local manufacturers.
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Date
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2005-11-14
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Barbara Bloch
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Description
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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.
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Betty Brand
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Description
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Interview with Betty Brand about her family's history in and her experience with the Kansas City garment industry. Betty was married to Arthur Brand, whose family started the Brand and Puritz factory in 1928, and describes the family's experience in the garment business, the different suit and coat lines they manufactured, and the large number of immigrants among their staff. She also describes their experience in Kansas City's Jewish community, the retail and restaurant landscape of downtown Kansas City, and shares her paintings and photographs of her family and travels.
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Date
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2010-11-15
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Bob and Bruce Gershon
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Description
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Interview with Bruce and Bob Gershon about the history of their family company, Arrowhead Fabricare Services. They discuss the building's construction at the corner of 39th and Troost, salvaging furs and leather goods from Plaza stores after the 1977 flood, their garment company clients, a venture into hat-making, and share stories about their lives, families, and the dry-cleaning business.
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Date
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2009-10-24
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Bob Slegman
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Description
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Interview with Bob Slegman about his life and his family's company Stern-Slegman-Prins. He recounts his family history and their start manufacturing silk blouses, and his paternal Slegman family and maternal Stern family partnering up as "jobbers" who distributed wholesale garments to retailers, later manufacturing ladies' coats and suits, and notes that many other prominent garment industry companies had their roots in Stern-Slegman-Prins. He discusses the high quality of local manufacturing, and the operations, financing, and demographics of the work force, as well as his entry into the family business and his service as an Army Air Corps meteorologist during World War II. He shares photographs and other stories about the company, including their inability to have a company outing at Fairyland Park due to having black employees, and discusses the decline of the local garment industry and changes in fashion and retail in the 1970s. Anne Brownfield appears to show off details of a Stern-Slegman-Prins manufactured "Betty Rose" coat.
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Date
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2007-10-23
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Carl Puritz
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Description
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Interview with Carl Puritz about his family's company, Brand and Puritz. He discusses Hyman and Joe Brand and Harry Puritz founding the company in 1928, making women's coats and suits, manufacturing uniforms as part of the war effort in World War II, and recalls other family members who passed through the company. He also discusses the decline of the domestic apparel business in the face of Asian imports, the multiple clothing lines manufactured by the company, and their time making uniforms for TWA. Carl notes that he is the last surviving member of the Brand and Puritz families who worked for the company, and they show and discuss original garments made by the company and held at the Historic Garment District Museum.
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Date
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2005-08-22
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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