heading uptown in the back of

a taxi, I was running a little bit late as usual.

Anxiety was setting in as I checked my camera
and the recording device I’d never actually
used before. On the schedule was a meeting
with the owner of a sewing factory to learn
about his business. I’d gotten his name from
Nanette’s assistant Erica. The plan was to
design some pages for the vendor book. My
students had been working on this project
over the past year and it was time to finally
put myself in their place and get to work.
NANETTE,
MILLY&
MARC
IT ALL STARTS HERE 
 “ When you come back in a month
you’ll see a totally different season,
different designs, different machines.
Now we’re working on spring. There’s
a lot of summer colors, the yellows
and the pinks, the smocking for the

REGAL
long patio dresses or sun dresses…

ORIGINALS
The best advice I can give any
young designer is that there’s no
stupid question. Ask and get as
much information as you can from
as many people as you can.


MAGDELENA
CARMEN
NATHAN
MATILDA
OMA
FANNY
ANNA
ROSE
JOSEPHINE &
RODGER
TAKE US BEHIND THE SCENES
Watch your step!
ELASTIC
We have many types of smocking
machines with specialized cams
that make different designs. Some

SHIRRING
of these machines can have up to
100 threads of different colors run-

RUFFLES
ning at the same time. Above we are
making an elasticized bandeau that
will be attached to a long dress.

STITCHING, TUCKING, SMOCKING, TRAPUNTO,

NAILHEADS, WIRE EDGE, HAND PLEATING...
28 EMPLOYEES, OVER 50 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
We have a relationship with almost every
designer, from people who ship to JC Penney
and Target to the biggest couture houses.

TABLE PLEATING

MACHINE PLEATING

PLEATED RUFFLES

SHIRRED RUFFLES

SMOCKING

FAGGOTTING

INVISIBLE PIPING,

SADDLE STITCHING

BONNAZ

EMBROIDERIES

APPLIQUE WORK

DIE CUTTING

HEAT SEAL

RHINESTONES

GROMMETS

PEARLS

FRINGING

BLANKET STITCHING

CROCHET STITCH

SHELL STITCH

BABY HEM

PICOT EDGE

PEARL EDGE

ZIZ-ZAG EDGE

AND MANY MORE

UNIQUE STITCHES
josephine has been here over fifty years, since day 1 when the

business opened. She is part of our success. Years ago, this was a seasonal

business. We got very busy in the fall and in the spring. In between there

were highs and lows. If you had workers that specialized in a certain kind

of embroidery, and embroidery was in for only two months, they started

looking for another job. Years ago Josephine was a hemmer; baby hemming,

blind stitch, she had good hands. But as the business changed, we couldn’t

keep her busy 12 months a year. So we taught her to work every machine

and multi task. That’s what we did with all our workers here. If there was

some job that they didn’t know, we’d teach them. We try to maintain a staff

that we can hold onto when we’re slow, and give overtime to when we’re

busy. Currently we have 28 employees.

 
Jack Krinick
Founder of Regal Originals
“
This business was started by
my father-in-law who came
to America after WWII. He
was in the Holocaust and
lost all his family and he
came here with very little.
He started working in the
garment center as many
immigrants did. But he knew
that being a worker wasn’t
for him and he bought a
machine and then another
machine. He hired a worker,
then two workers. In the
height of 80’s we had almost
200 workers here and over
30,000 square feet in the
factory. That was when over
85-90% of the garments were
made in America. He was a
very smart businessman and
he worked very hard. I often
„,
say he came to these shores
from losing everything but
what he never lost was the
American Dream, and he was
able to have that American
Dream because of the
Garment Center.
The focus of our business is to help and instruct
the customer with our years of experience to
produce something. When it comes to trimming,
a lot of the pattern makers and designers rely
on our years of experience with how to cut
something, how to produce something. Designers
have amazing sewers in their sample rooms that
have great hands and can sew anything, but
they doesn’t mean that they know how a factory
works and how the factory needs it prepared in
order to mass produce it at a reasonable price.
If a designer needs some pleating, or has an
item that needs stitching, tucking, smocking or
one of the many things we specialize in, they
should come to us before they are ready to
cut it. We know the best way to advise them.
Sometimes it’s as simple as “don’t cut this
front in half because it’ll be too small. Leave
it in one piece and cut it afterwards”. For us to
make the stitching straight, we need at least 20”
to work with. You should trust that I’m out to
produce the best garment for you. If you don’t
sell your garment, eventually it’s less business
for us. I always try to tell my customers what is
the best way for you to do this. Sometimes this
is not the best for me, but you’ll have a better
product. Eventually you’ll have more units next
season because you shipped a superior product.
There has to be trust and understanding in the
relationship. Mistakes are made, everything can
be fixed. That’s why there’s an eraser at the end
of a pencil.
We generally make our samples in the morning
when the machines aren’t too hot. The girls
come in the morning and they know it’s sample
hour. Usually, if you come in on Monday, you can
have your sample Tuesday afternoon. If it’s a
very detailed piece, it might take up to a week. If
a designer has an emergency [which happens all
the time!] we can turn a sample in an hour. Once
an order is placed, delivery might take a week or
two. We just got an order for 40,000 skirts! R.C.
WHY MANUFACTURE
IN NEW YORK CITY?
The benefits for a new young small
designer; first of all there are no
minimums. You have total control
of your designs, your output. There
are no language barriers, nobody
misunderstanding what you want.
You get your product very quickly
and you have the control. You’ll
have the hands-on experience
that you won’t get by sending you
sketches overseas and hoping
that you’ll be understood and that
it will be made right.

We did a whole bunch of these for a marc jacobs line

and when they’re finished they hold a nice little ruffle.
“
You can’t open a text book and

have 40+ years of experience on

how a fabric is going to react. It

reacts much differently than a

piece of paper or your muslin. They

rely on us for that knowledge.

„
We have hundreds of specialized machines
on these shelves. When special stitchings
become seasonal or popular they come off
the shelf and onto the floor.
support the “
GARMENT CENTER

There is the misconception
that young kids going into design
have about the glamour of fashion,
the runway shows. They don’t
really see the back room effort
of it, the sweat they have to put
into it. If they have a specific
design that they want to produce
in America, but a shop like mine
is not available to them because
no one supported us throughout
the years, and the factory had to
eventually close up because of
the rent and the payroll, and the
designer wants to do this amazing
stitch, or ruffle, or a flower, flowers
are so hot….where are they going
to get it??? When I started in this
business thirty years ago from
high school, we used to know
exactly when something was made
in China because they only had
white and black thread. Now, the
thread companies in America have
eliminated so many thread colors
we now we have the reverse. So I
have 3 variations of green instead
of the 12 I used to have. I’m sorry

„
I can’t get a better match. This is
a consequence of outsourcing and
soon I’ll only have white and black
thread available... and who’s going
to want that.
“You’ve got to make the stitch tighter

If GM can cut back, we can cut back.

It’s a challenge.”
PLEATS
nathan has been working at
Regal Originals for over 43 years. Those
thousands of rolls of brown paper behind
him on the shelves? Each one is a pleating
pattern with different specifications that
have been made by hand scoring the heavy
weight cardboard. Nathan knows them
all by memory. He takes one down and
spreads it open. He lays the fabric down on
top of the pattern, centers the fabric and
carefully smooths out any wrinkles with
his hands. The second part of the pattern
is placed on top and is weighted down so
that the fabric sandwiched inside doesn’t
shift. The pleats are folded in. The process
is not finished until the piece is steamed.
After cooling, the piece is checked for size.
It gets very hot in here in the summer, so
make a fan just like the one you made is
school; Nathan’s are just a little to large
to cool off with!
“
I’m union here.
All my workers
have health care
and a pension.

„
Business has changed.
We’ve exported the American dream. And I don’t
think people really understand the consequences
of losing manufacturing in America. They’re aloof
to the repercussions of not buying American and
not supporting the American made product. If
that doesn’t change with a grassroots campaign,
it’s just going to get worse and worse. Even
though we know here at the factory, that a piece
might not be produced in America, we will still
work with the designers making samples and
unique designs for them. We are there for them.
10 years ago I might have said “If you’re making
it in China, I’m not going to help you”. Now, it’s
become a part of our business.

The biggest downfall of overseas manufacturing,

is when a manufacturer decides for many
given reasons that they can’t afford to produce
a specific style over seas, and they bring it
here, they’re expecting us to compete with the
overseas labor price… and we can’t. I can give
them a price and they tell me that they can have
that whole dress made in China for that. There’s
nothing I can do. I’m union here. I have health care
for all my workers. My workers have pensions
Designers come here with a caviar request. We’ll
give them a simplified version with the same
feeling, but it will be easily manufactured. When
it comes to India, Bangladesh and China, to do
handwork on garments just adds pennies to the
price. Here we no longer do handwork. In July,
we had to throw out tons of machines. It was
very sad. No one would even buy them. We sold
them for scrap. And these machines are $40,000
new. But we don’t have the real estate anymore.
I had no choice. But, we still run the same quality
operation we had.

If you want to work with Regal Originals [and we

think you should!], you can walk right in the door
without an appointment. There is no minimum
order and they often work with students from
Parsons and FIT. There is a complete staff of
knowledgeable people who can advise and help
you. If Rodger is there, be sure to say HI and tell
him you saw him in THE LIST!

REGAL ORIGINALS
247 W 37th St Floor No. 3
(212) 921-0270
www.regaloriginals.com
M-F 9-5
credits
B&Q TRIMMING krupa sheth

BECKENSTEIN FABRICS jillian hobbs

BENNETT LIBERTY lee cerre

CITY QUILTER paula paramo

GLOBAL LEATHERS monica susantio

HABU TEXTILES patrick sullivan

KNIT ILLUSTRATED INC. oliver ngan

LEATHER SUEDE SKINS INC. manuel lora

MOOD FABRICS neha kasliwal

NY EMBROIDERY STUDIO emily depietro

PRECISION TRIMMING kenton peng

REGAL ORIGINAL julia gor ton

RIET PETERS celine chang

SORELLE TAILORING mar garet lee

SPOSABELLA LACE glenn boozan

TEXTILES BY LILLY kirstin hazell

TOHO SHOJI yuta nakatani

WESTPHAL r yan chung

COVER manuel lora

Spring 2O1O
special thanks
to Francesca Sammaritano and Simon Collins
from Parsons The New School for Design for
their support and guidance with this project,
to all of the amazing vendors who tirelessly
made time for us even during Fashion Week!
To Nanette Lapore and Erica Wolfe who
introduced me to Rodger Cohen of Regal
Originals who gave me his time and allowed
unlimited access to his wonderful factory and
staff. This directory was made in New York!

www.savethegarmentcenter.org

g o r t onj@newschool.edu
2O1O Vol 1 No. 2