Slaughter on Seventh Avenue

Not so long ago, young hot-shots in the garment industry would swagger to the top with order pads in one hand and samples of the latest fashions in the other. But nowadays life along Manhattan's Seventh Avenue, main drag of the U.S. dressmaking industry, is a bit more subdued. Three years after the ill-starred "midi" provoked a customer rebellion that unstitched profits in firm after firm, many women are still shying away from dresses and skirts of any sort, and playing it safe fashionwise by choosing pantsuits. Result: a New York dressmaking disaster.

Nationwide, dressmakers' production last year dropped 1%, and 6,500 jobs disappeared. As sales sag, costs soar. Wholesale buyers, after the midi misfire, are anxious to avoid stocking ,up on any one style. The result is that dressmakers have to offer greater variety to attract interest--at the expense of their profit margins.

Inevitably, Manhattan, where 60% of all U.S. dresses are made, has been hardest hit. Since 1966, New York City has lost more than 17,000 jobs (26% of its total dressmaking labor force), most not because of automation but because companies have gone out of business, while new ones opened elsewhere. High labor costs have been one reason. Last month the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union won a 20% hike over the next three years for its 60,000 New York area members. A principal beneficiary of New York's decline has been Miami, where spacious plants rent for half the going cost of New York lofts, and nonunion Cuban immigrant labor is available at rates 7% to 10% below those on Seventh Avenue. Miami dressmaking employment has risen from 5,000 in 1960 to 18,000 now.

Nat Levine, president of Manhattan-based Capitol Dress Co., foresees a day perhaps ten years off when the industry will vanish from New York altogether. He may be too pessimistic, but Saul Nimowitz, director of New York City's Office of Apparel Industry Planning and Development, asserts: 'The middle-sized Manhattan dressmaker has been the backbone of the city's $7 billion garment industry, and he is the one who cannot survive today. The big conglomerates have enough money to move out of town, and the one-sewing-machine people can operate in a closet. In between, forget it."

Along with its manufacturing preeminence, New York is losing its position as a sales showroom for dresses, wherever made. Visits by out-of-town buyers, who more and more fear that they will be mugged, have dropped 8% in the last five years. Three years ago, Alley Cat, a Philadelphia-based maker of women's boutique and sportswear fashions, sold its entire output through a showroom in Manhattan. Since then, it has opened salesrooms in Dallas and Los Angeles; last year, only about 30% of its garments were sold in New York. Says Jerry Silverman, president of a Manhattan-based designer shop that counts Pat Nixon and her two daughters among its customers: "There is so much money in the hands of American women these days that dressmakers face the opportunity of a lifetime. But to get the business, you have to get on a plane and get out of town."

To hem up the industry's sagging image, the administration of New York Mayor John Lindsay is trying to put a new front on Seventh Avenue. Last fall the street was renamed "Fashion Avenue" between 26th and 41st Streets. New high-intensity streetlights have been installed; later this year a "Buyers Hospitality Center," co-sponsored by the city and the garment industry, will open. Such changes may help, but they do not hit the real problem. Designers are coming closer by trumpeting shirtwaist dresses as the fashion "must" for spring. Dressmakers in New York--and elsewhere--can only hope that this time their customers agree.

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