OUT OF THE ORDINARY: Chopak Mills

NEW YORK — It has a Seventh Avenue showroom that’s smack in the center of the Garment District, and a Carthage, North Carolina factory right in the traditional heartland of the American textile industry. But don’t let any of that fool you. Chopak Mills is about as unconventional as they come.

As CEO Dan Selinka says: “This is not the stodgy old mill mentality.”

For instance, when you visit those midtown Manhattan offices—and it’s not hard, since they’re right across the street from Macy’s—you’re going to hear marketing chief Vince Trotta explain why Chopak Mills longtime commitment to “lowering the carbon footprint” is paying off, and you’re going to realize that for this shrewd industry veteran “going green” is not some new-fangled marketing gimmick, it’s a no-brainer way to lower costs pioneered at Chopak long before it was fashionable anywhere else.

Or visit that plant in North Carolina, and you’ll plenty of looms warped up and whirring away—itself an anomaly in an industry that has mostly gone offshore or gone under.

Look at the fabrics coming off those looms and you’re liable to see a gorgeous gauze made of 100 percent Supima cotton, that’s easily the equal of anything made in France or Switzerland but, as merchandized by the company’s Ron Cohen, still priced under $3.50 a yard.

Or, on the same factory floor, you might also see a line of upholstery fabrics produced from pure Supima, a first-to-market innovation that is set for full rollout later this summer, merchandized by Dan Drinkard under the company’s “Cedar Ridge” label.


And all this is coming from a company that was founded by Herman Chopak in 1950 primarily as maker of synthetic gray goods for the dress market, that has long since evolved into a major domestic producer of twills, shirting, and home furnishings.

“We’ve gotten into different technologies as the markets change,” explains Selinka, whose family was a minority investor when the company began and eventually bought the remaining shares in 1987. “Gradually, we’ve cut out the converters and cut out most of the middle men and middle layers.”

With some understatement, Selinka adds: “Our history is to keep changing.”

Over the years, those changes have included the company name: Although currently best known as Chopak Mills, the company was founded as Carthage Fabrics and, during the 21st century, began using the moniker “Cedar Ridge” for its line of home furnishings fabrics. Later this year, things may come full circle when the brands are reunited under the Carthage banner, concurrent with a Web site launch.

With all that, the entire company ethos has undergone a complete 180-degree turnaround. The firm that was founded as a producer of commodity gray goods now refers to itself as an “artisan” producer, borrowing a term more often heard in Lyon or Biella. What’s more, it backs up its claim by being one of the few U.S. weavers with a full-time designer on staff: Kim Lennox, who is currently at work on the rollout of the new line of Supima upholstery weights.

Further proof: Chopak Mills’ increasing use of premium long staple Supima cotton.

“Luster, hand, wearability,” say Trotta, ticking off the immediate advantages of using Supima cotton, then adding a less quantifiable one: “You wouldn’t give your baby a blanket made from some polyester microfiber, you want to give the baby something made from Supima.”

“There’s nothing to hide with Supima,” adds Lennox, “For something like a home furnishings fabric, I can get all kinds of texture that I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. I can bring the warp right up to the face of the fabric, not have to hide it in the back [as you do with a blend]. You can wash it a lot without it wearing out. It takes color beautifully . . . you get amazing yarn dyes. And there’s a lot of petting and stroking that goes on when people see this fabric: It just feels better.”

Which brings them back to the carbon footprint again.

“Supima is domestically produced,” Trotta chimes in, “we’re avoiding imports and saving the burn on the environment.”

A FINE FINISH: Supima's first retail venture ends on a high note

NEW YORK — Supima’s first-ever retail venture, a pop-up store that ran here from March 14 through April 13, went out with a strong finish: Hitting its highest sales amount on its final day, which was preceded by a weekend of heavy foot traffic and strong sales.

On top of all that, the store’s final special event, a “Paint the T-Shirt” workshop staged on April 3, had been promoted on several national Web sites and fashion blogs including the heavily read “Events” section of the New York Post. And, as a result, was heavily attended by a cross section.

“The success of the pop-up exceeded our wildest expectations,” says Buxton Midyette, Supima’s vice president of marketing. “We introduced the unique of Supima and the creativity of its licensees to an enormous audience that we never would have been able to reach by conventional methods.”

So, will Supima repeat the retail promotion?

Stay tuned.

AT THE SUPIMA STORE: The 'Painting T-shirts' Event

NEW YORK — The Supima pop-up store scored another successful event.

Droves of shoppers and brand-new fans of Supima turned out for the Supima store's free "Paint the T-shirt" event, held here yesterday, April 3, from noon to 7 p.m.

Promoted heavily by local and national fashion Web sites (including The New York Post's—see previous blog entry), the free event gave shoppers a chance to design their own shirts—and then shop again while they waited for the paint to dry.

SUPIMA IN THE NEWS: The New York Post

NEW YORK — Promotional placements don’t get much better than this.

The much-read blog for the The New York Post, where the city’s fashionistas log on each morning to see what they’ll be doing that day, gave a terrific placement to an upcoming event at Supima’s pop-up store at 72 Greene Street in SoHo.

The event, scheduled for noon to 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, will feature not only free Supima T-shirts, but a painting table, beverages (of both alcoholic and nonalcoholic varieties) and snacks.

Not to be outdone by the Post, the event was also promoted online by www.amber.com and www.phatguru.com.

SUPIMA IN THE NEWS: Elle.com

NEW YORK — The Supima pop-up store, which opened here in SoHo on March 14, made the fashion news again when Elle.com ran a feature on the store, Supima's surprise cotton field promotion, and the gorgeous magalog produced to promote the pop-up. Here's some of what they had to say:

THE COTTON CLUB
Soft T-shirts and dream-inducing linens may not inspire passion in jaded New Yorkers, but a one-acre cotton field, trucked up from North Carolina and plunked down on a SoHo street corner, is guaranteed to turn a few heads. That was the thought process behind Supima's (the “cashmere of cottons”) stunt to draw attention to their new pop-up retail venture, open through April 13. The store features pieces from 15 designers (including AG Adriano Goldschmied, Three Dots, and Sharon Segal, daughter of Fred) rendered exclusively in super-soft Pima cotton. Each designer is offering 8 to 10 pieces from their own collections, as well as an exclusive to the Supima pop-up. Shoppers can also indulge in cocktails while they browse, pick up free CDs, and attend a series of free events throughout the shop's tenure (next up: a paint-your-own-T-shirt night on Wednesday, April 2). Warm and fuzzy feeling included, no extra charge.

To read more: www.elle.com/fashionreport/13792/supima-pop-up-store.html

SUPIMA IN THE NEWS: The Fairchild Encyclopedia of Menswear

NEW YORK — As Mary Lisa Gavenas discovered when she was working on The Fairchild Encyclopedia of Menswear, trying to write the definitive reference book on all matters of menswear meant tackling a lot of textile topics too.

“No way you can talk men’s fashion without mentioning denim. Or worsted. Or what canvas does to suit construction. Or how to tell a pinstripe from a chalkstripe from a pencil stripe. Or how Gore-Tex works and what came before it,” says Gavenas, whose just-published hardback has over 2,200 entries on 418 oversized, well-illustrated pages—hundreds of them explaining fibers, fabrics, patterns, and textile history.

“It was crucial to make these entries thorough enough for an buyer or retailer to use,” says the author, who includes thousands of cross-references, “but it’s also written for the guy who’s just a fashion addict, so the language is very approachable.”

To make things even easier, she’s also included an eight-page color insert illustrating all the traditional patterns and weaves: “So you don’t even have to know the name of something to use this book.”

She adds: “There’s really no place else to look some of this stuff up. You could go crazy trying to research this on the Web—you’d go through thousands of hits on a search engine before you’d find the particular definition of ‘cloth’ or ‘yarn’ as it’s used in the menswear.”

And naturally there’s an entire entry devoted to Supima—as well as dozens of linked entries like ‘pima cotton,’ ‘Egyptian cotton,’ ‘long staple cotton,’ and ‘sea island cotton.’

“When I was researching this I found Supima included in a couple of guides to traditional menswear—people at the high end of the market definitely love being associated with the name—but there’s a lot of misinformation out there. For example, Esquire’s Encyclopedia of 20th Century Men’s Fashions, which was published in 1973 and has been plagarized mercilessly ever since, misidentifies Supima as a fabric and most menswear ‘experts’ have been copying that mistake ever since.”

Fairchild—itself a division of Condé Nast—is the educational publishing arm of the company that also produces Women’s Wear Daily, W Magazine, DNR, Footwear News, and a slew of other consumer and trade titles. Its books are literally required reading in virtually every college curriculum featuring fashion, retailing, or interior design.

“This book, though, was written with the crossover market in mind,” says Gavenas, who started out as an old-fashioned general assignment reporter on daily newspapers before moving to New York to cover fashion and then get a master’s degree in Costume History at NYU.

Her book also includes “how-to” diagrams showing necktie knots, bow ties, and ascots, plus several variations on folding a pocket square. Biographies of dandies—from Beau Brummell and the Duke of Windsor to Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis—are packd with the kinds of details not available anywhere else. She adds: “There’s also trivia galore on topics like the invention of the ‘earmuff’ . . . I wanted this book to have an authentic claim to being encyclopedic.”

And, as its author sums up: “I guess you might say that you couldn’t write the definitive book about menswear without mentioning Supima.”

www.barnesandnoble.com
www.amazon.com

SUPIMA ON THE WEB: On the Internet and all over the blogosphere

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifNEW YORK — Supima's pop-up store in SoHo and last week's surprise "Field of Dreams" cotton field in downtown Manhattan have been making all kinds of electronic headlines. Here, a round-up of sites and links:

New York Magazine
Supima Gives NYC Its Own Cotton Field
nymag.com/daily/fashion/2008/03/a_first_look_at_the_mock_cotto.html

PRWeek
Supima spurs branding boost with pop-up store
www.prweekus.com/Supima-spurs-branding-boost-with-pop-up-store/article/107709/

DNR
Supima to “pop up” in Soho
www.dnrnews.com/site/article.php?id=1530

Brand Republic
Supima spurs branding boost with pop-up store
www.brandrepublic.com/News/789310/Supima-spurs-branding-boost-pop-up-store/

Progressive Pulse Blog
Pop-up Shop: Supima—Cashmere of Cotton!
www.progressivepulse.com/blog/?p=184

Racked
Rackage: Supima's Cottony Greene Street Pop-Up
www.racked.com/archives/2008/03/20/rackage_1.php


For more electronic coverage, see SUPIMA IN THE NEWS postings below.