Garment industry seems a bright spot in L.A.'s economy.

Garment industry seems a bright spot in L.A.'s economy

Retail sales of clothing are expanding, raising hopes in Los Angeles' garment district that 1990 will be a good year.

Across the country, apparel sales in April reached an estimated $7.62 billion, up 16.7 percent from a year earlier. For the first four months of the year, apparel sales are 13.7 percent ahead of the same period last year, according the Department of Commerce. The indications are that May will be even better.

What is good for the clothing business is very good for Los Angeles: In terms of employment, apparel is the second-largest industry in Los Angeles County, behind only the region's troubled aerospace business. And nationally, Los Angeles is the second-largest apparel manufacturing center, behind only New York.

"All of a sudden, the skies have opened up," exclaimed George W. Randall, chairman and founder of Yes Clothing Co., a garment maker that went public last year. "From J.C. Penney to Burdines (an upscale retailer) in Florida, business is up. In other words, nearly the full spectrum."

Yes Clothing sales in 1990 should exceed $50 million, up from $29 million last year, according analysts.

Foot traffic is up strongly at the California Mart, the 3-million-square-foot apparel showroom in downtown Los Angeles where clothes are exhibited to wholesale buyers, said David Morse, CalMart partner and director of marketing.

"At our Fall market (held in March), traffic was up 17 percent from our Fall market last year," said Morse. "Better women's contemporary clothing and active sportswear sales are very strong."

The garment district here is still growing, in contrast to the doldrums that have gripped the industry nationwide for years. Nearly 108,000 work on production lines in the apparel and textile trades in Los Angeles County, compared with 86,300 just 10 years ago, according to the state Employment Development Department.

Moreover, many garment district denizens say the official figures understate actual employment in the local apparel industry, due to the large number of "underground" sewing shops and homeworkers who work "off-the-book" for cash pay.

Roger Miller, regional manager for the state Department of Industrial Relations, has estimated the actual number of garment workers in Los Angeles to be a third to a half higher than official numbers, which are based upon state unemployment compensation receipts.

The garment district is vastly different form aerospace in many regards: Unlike aerospace with its legions of high-skilled engineers and computer programmers, the garment district is home primarily to illegal aliens, who usually labor for the minimum wage -- without benefits.

Still, garment-making is a manufacturing industry, which brings wealth into the local economy. Economists say that for every worker on a clothing-production line, another two to three jobs are created in collateral activities, such as trucking, warehousing, management, finance, accounting and sales.

For Los Angeles' core of designers and manufacturers, the turnaround is welcome. Last year was a dull year, in which many improperly poised garment makers took it in the shorts. "A lot of people got hurt last year, anybody who really didn't keep their finger on the fashion pulse," said Tina Hagen, founder of the $5 million (sales) Tina Hagen brand, a maker of novelty jackets and bottoms. "The knits (knitted goods) especially were soft. Many manufacturers had big drops in volume."

Some names that disappeared last year: the Casadei Collection, Joy Stevens, Mimi Fayazi and Karl Logan.

But that was last year. There are a variety of explanations for the surge in clothing sales this year -- and a bit ironically, some said last week that a weak economy can even boost clothing sales, akin to the strength the movie business exhibits in recessions and depressions. Dreaming with clothes can be done on the cheap.

"I think clothing allows a bit of escapism," said David Posluns, president of Club Monaco, a Los Angeles-based retailer-manufacturer, and a former investment banker with Shearson Lehman Hutton. "It is easy to feel and look different, at a relatively inexpensive price -- certainly in comparison to a new car."

Creating dream-like clothing is especially the forte of Los Angeles designers, who specialize in casual contemporary clothing, largely in the mid-price category of between $25 and $150 a piece.

"Los Angeles designers are more innovative and more risky than New York designers," said Kristin Hoffman, founder of the Kristin J line. "In the mid-price category, you have to give consumers a lot for their money. Your clothes have to be special, and that's what local designers excel at."

Local designers are finding their own pots of gold in this year's garment bull market. Tina Hagen recently bought out her financier's interest in her three-year-old company -- although right now, the financier has profited more than her, she said. "We started with $80,000 in capital, $20,000 of my own, and $60,000 from a financial backer."

Made confident by strong 1990 sales, Hagen last week bought out her financial backer, but had to reward him "with nine dollars for every dollar he put in."

At Yes Clothing, Randall said that even if the 1990s should turn out to be a weak decade economically, he plans to make money. "There are only three industries in this world that are a prerequisite to life: agriculture, construction and clothing," Randall proclaimed last week. "If you can't make money in those industries, you don't know what you are doing."

PHOTO : George Randall: Clothes are necessary to survive