The Kronovet Family has been Making Clothing for Generations

• Started with my grandfather’s grandfather Samuel Kronovet
• My sister has her own clothing company
• Going to look at the evolution of the clothing business in my family over time

Who was Samuel Kronovet

• He immigrated from the Austria-Hungary in like 1886
• He only spoke of two things: business and the torah
• Interestingly, my grandfather’s other grandfather was a tailor
• Samuel lived in east side of NY where he worked for some clothing comopany then became a peddler for men’s underwear and socks
  • peddler is someone who travels to different retail stores to sell them clothing
  • Stores often relied on credit to buy from him
    • same thing in my father’s business
  • he was actually the middleman
• A bunch of people joined the business and went all over to sell stuff

Credit in the Clothing

• Retail stores don’t have enough money lying around to pay for the clothes that are in their stores. How can they order more clothes?
• Manufacturer will give them credit which is basically saying that the store can pay the manufacturer later after the store makes enough money
• Small manufacturers like my dad will use a factor to make sure that he gets money from the retail stores
  • Factor will give my dad like 70% of the invoice value (money retail store owes) up front and then
    • then after the factor is tasked with collecting the money from the retail store and they take maybe 4%

The Beginning of the Business

• Samuel then opened his own retail store and became a wholesaler
  • wholesalers buy in bulk from manufacturers and sell smaller orders to retailers
  • main business was wholesaler

If he had a retail store and was a wholesaler, couldn’t the prices in his retail store undercut other retailers?

A Typical Price Cycle:

1. Say we are making a shirt in China and manufacturing costs $15
2. My dad buys this for $45 and then sells it to retail stores for $90
3. Retail stores then sell it to you for $200
   • So since you are buying in bulk as the wholesaler then you can have better prices than the other retailers who need to buy it from you at higher prices

   • Turns out that it was too hard for people to travel back then so the only people who could come to your store were people in the neighborhood because of crappy transportation in the old days

Grandpa get’s into the family business

• Samuel had 5 sons who all worked for him in the business and 3 daughters who didn’t work in it
• My grandfather went to school for accounting, but then hated the work so he started working for my dad’s company
• manufaturing was too expensive up north so they moved it south
  • Grandpa moved to Statesville, NC to manage a factory in Hickory
    • He had about 35 people working for him at the factory (he worked with an experienced dude who showed him how to run the factory Joe Jay)
    • made golf shirts
  • Grandpa moves to Charlotte to restart factory by a city and Joe Jay and workers didn’t come with him
    • had to start fresh in Charlotte

Becoming the Head Hancho of Westbury

• Eventually people in the family wanted to sell the business but nobody wanted to buy it
• My grandfather decided to buy out his dad and uncles and grandfather
  • it took him 12 years to pay off debt from buying the
  • they made golf shirts and sweaters
• At this point there were 5 factories all in NC when grandpa bought the business
• grandpa knew how to run the whole business and he focused on selling to the big businesses and brother in law started handling ssmaller people
• sold to JC Penny, Sears, K-Mart other big ones

• My dad and uncle worked for my grandfather

Tales of Alfred: Shifting Ownership

• Of Samuel’s sons, he was the only one to go to college and he became a lawyer before coming back to help run the family business
  1. Denial of swimsuit business to grandpa’s brother in law
  2. Don’t pay your uncle, Dave

The Beginning of the End

• In the 1990s Clinton was big on free trade and this exported low wage jobs to other countries
• Westbury loses its biggest customer
  • Grandfather had just bought $1 million of machines
• Factories close one buy one and eventually have to sell machines for $50,000

Staying Afloat

• In debt from buying building and machines
• Attempted ventures:
  • government contracts
  • family dollar
  • Bellini baby stores
• Survived off renting out factory buildings and then selling them off
  • Copper wire lawsuit extravaganza

Clothing Forever!

• My dad started his own business selling to a bunch of small stores for a higher margin compared to the old business
  • Margin is the difference in money between the cost it takes to produce a product and the price of someone buying it
• “The government fucked me then and they’re still fucking me now”
• It is a hussle

The Modern Era: Ameliora

• Fully online clothing store
• Usually in my dad’s business clothes are seasonal, but women’s business attire is always in demand, so they can keep them in inventory forever
• Women’s empowerment
• https://ameliora.com

The End

Miscellaneous

• My grandfather rarely saw him because
  • your forbidden to drive on Saturday
  • mother’s father lived with my grandfather and he was a tailer (unrelated to other business)
• Although the family didn’t really talk to each other “In those days you didn’t talk about relationships you talked about baseball”
• Samuel invested in stocks and real estate but never again after the depression
• (only 1 went to college:) worked for him
• Although the family didn’t really talk to each other “In those days you didn’t talk about relationships you talked about baseball”
• What was family life like for them?
• How did the children get involved in clothing?
  • 5 sons (only 1 went to college) worked for him
    • dude became lawyer but then wenttowork for dad
• How did the business evolve from generation to generation?
• grandma was down to move to NC right after getting married but her parents weren’t thrilled
• family also owned a bathing suit business in NC that my grandpa didn’t work with it sold
• back then all workers who made clothes were women
• brother in law had clothing business in NY (grandpa acquired the whole business but gave this part back to brother in law)
• grandpa buys business and Alfred says he doesn’t have to pay his brother Joe money that they owed, so grandpa didn’t pay but then joe was like where’s my money
• family apparently hardly ever talked to each other despite working together
• Used to be you get a whole year’s worth of clothes from single meeting
  • he says you could see the shift inhow orders were decreasing over time
  • each year they closed a new factory
• Alan was managing the people in the factories
• first job of dad was running the knitting machine
  • and then he set up the computer system for order tracking
  • doing odd jobs making sure orders were packed and ready
• random lady who had experience designing and stuff designed clothes. she had contacts
• US Mackabea team for opening ceremony
• Trump imposed tariffs in China where my dad has 10 year relationships with factories
• Trump imposed tariffs in China where my dad has 10 year relationships with factories
• Pam’s mom worked for grandpa and then she worked in high school
• Tony worked for grandpa since after the marines
• What is the craziest thing that Mike has ever done or biggest mess you’ve had to clean up?
• Memories you have from back then?
• Making sweaters for Israel olympics team
• I remember whenever I would be out with my dad and we walked by a women’s clothing store he would go in and look around and buy shirts he liked and see if they could take the design for their own clothes