htmxq industry consumer goods founded 1911 incorporated as hart schaffner & marx headquarters chicago illinois area served united states key people homi b. patel chairman of the board president & ceo products textile apparel clothing revenue us 564.87 million 2007 operating income us 2.49 million 2007 net income us 4.18 million 2007 total assets us 269.55 million 2007 total equity us 228.04 million 2007 number of employees 3 800 website www.hartschaffnermarx.com hart schaffner & marx founded in 1887 and incorporated in 1911 is an american manufacturer of tailored menswear . its headquarters is at 101 north wacker drive chicago illinois . hart schaffner & marx is the flagship brand of hmx group a holding company that engages in the manufacture and marketing of apparel for men and women primarily in the united states . hmx group specializes in men s and women s tailored clothing and sportswear including golfwear shirts and ties and women s career apparel . hmx agreed to sell virtually all its assets to new york based authentic brands group on october 16 2012 for an undisclosed price following chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings . 1 contents 1 history 2 branding 3 sale 4 references 5 external links history edit the company has roots dating back to 1872 when brothers harry and max hart opened a small men s clothing store on chicago s state street 2 called harry hart and brother . in 1879 the harts brothers in law levi abt and marcus marx joined the partnership which was renamed hart abt and marx . eight years later marx and abt left the business and were replaced by a cousin joseph schaffner and the firm was renamed hart schaffner & marx . at the same time however the wholesale business began to grow overtaking the retail operations . on the strength of wholesale production hart abt and marx won contracts to produce clothing for the u.s. military . this introduced the partners to prefabricated off the rack clothing and marked their entry into the ready to wear suit trade . in 1897 the company began running national advertisements for its products and began selling off the rack suits through a variety of distributors . hart schaffner & marx commissioned well known illustrators such as john e. sheridan to paint pictures for style books and retail posters . 3 these ads portrayed the company s latest fashions in rich surroundings establishing hart schaffner & marx as a premium brand . hart schaffner & marx advertisement by john e. sheridan 1919 by 1906 the company had branched into sizes for men who were unusually tall short or overweight . hart schaffner & marx thus became a mass market brand enabling virtually any man to have a fine quality suit at a lower price than a custom tailored suit . in 1910 the company was targeted by the chicago garment workers strike also known as the hart schaffner and marx strike which led to improved conditions for workers and the founding of the amalgamated clothing workers of america . on may 10 1911 after years of steady growth the partnership was incorporated . during world war i the company introduced the first tropical worsted suits and the company s facilities were used for making uniforms . in 1926 the company expanded retail operations by acquiring wallach s a large new york city based clothing chain followed by chicago retail clothier baskin the following year . the company again produced uniforms for the military during world war ii . during the 1950s and 1960s the company continued to expand with the acquisition of clothing manufacturer society brand a major manufacturing house in 1952 ; hickey freeman a premier men s clothing brand and retailer of rochester new york was acquired in 1964 ; jaymar ruby and kleinhans in 1967 ; and in 1969 m. wile manufacturer of buffalo new york . after these major acquisitions an antitrust suit against the company led to a consent degree barring any further acquisitions without court approval for ten years . a year before the agreement expired the company acquired intercontinental apparel u.s. licensee of the pierre cardin brand . after acquiring bishop s men s shops the company expanded into women s clothing with the 1981 acquisition of the country miss chain . the kuppenheimer manufacturing company retailer of inexpensive suits with 41 retail outlets was acquired in 1982 for 25.8 million . in 1983 the company changed its name to hartmarx corporation with the new parent company acting as a holding company for various subsidiaries . the company acquired briar neckwear in july 1985 and in december 1986 acquired the casual suit jacket manufacturer h. ortisky . the following year hart schaffner & marx took over the nine store detroit retail chain anton s and in 1988 purchased boyd s a small retail chain in st. louis and the washington d.c. based upscale retailer raleigh s. in february 1989 the company also added the biltwell company a clothing manufacturer . by 1992 the company experienced continuing losses and divested itself of all retail outlets except the kuppenheimer chain . the company sold its 91 store kuppenheimer unit and two tailored clothing factories in 1995 . the 1990s was a period of offshoring of production facilities to control costs . during that period they closed ten domestic factories and shifted production to china mexico and costa rica . expansion continued in this period with the acquisition in late 1996 of bankrupt plaid clothing group inc. a maker and marketer of men s tailored suits sportcoats and slacks ; pusser s ltd. including the pusser s of the west indies line of nautical and tropical sportswear and outerwear in 1998 ; and in december 1998 ; coppley noyes and randall limited a leading canadian maker of men s tailored clothing . in august of the following year the company acquired royal shirt company a canadian maker of women s and men s dress and sports shirts . the label enjoyed considerable publicity during the 2008 presidential campaign when then senator barack obama wore the brand extensively including suits tailored especially for his acceptance speech and the 2009 presidential inaugural address . obama expressed a personal affinity for the brand which is based in his hometown of chicago . the company and its united states subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy on january 23 2009 . at the time the company said its canadian and other non u.s. affiliates had not sought bankruptcy protection . 4 workers threatened to occupy hartmarx s plant if the company s creditor wells fargo bank attempted to lay off workers and liquidate the company s assets . 5 on june 22 2009 hartmarx corp. received five bids for its assets in its bankruptcy proceedings . bidders included emerisque sknl north america affliction clothing co. perry ellis and versa capital management . in august 2009 emerisque brands uk and its partner sknl north america completed their purchase of hartmarx . in july 2016 david hart debuted a capsule collection for hart schaffner marx men s rtw spring 2017 named hart by hart ; the collection is made in the brand s chicago factory . 6 the summer collection is inspired by slim aarons photographs of tropical locales including the maldives provence and corsica . 6 branding edit the hart schaffner & marx premium brands dated back to the turn of the 20th century and included hart schaffner & marx and hickey freeman but it was not until one night in 1966 that branding became a significant factor in company growth . that evening television host johnny carson walked on stage to deliver his nightly tonight show monologue wearing a turtleneck sweater and a collarless nehru jacket . because of the overwhelming popularity of the style hart schaffner & marx entered into an agreement to market a new casual line of suits under the johnny carson name and later under the premium bobby jones brand and jack nicklaus s name . hart schaffner & marx introduced the austin reed brand name during the 1960s . in 1974 the company rolled out a line of tailored clothing under the christian dior name followed by nino cerruti allyn st. george and playboy . these new lines were created under contract to their designer namesakes and proved highly successful as fashion leaders . in 1979 pierre cardin was added to the distinguished list of designers . in the late 1990s two new lines perry ellis and daniel hechter were introduced ; the latter was positioned within the popular priced segment and the former resided within the moderate sector . the tommy hilfiger line was also introduced as business casual wear . in 1996 with the acquisition of plaid clothing group inc. brands including burberry liz claiborne evan picone palm beach and brannoch were added to the hartmarx stable . sale edit in 2012 authentic brands group an intellectual property corporation with a mandate to acquire manage and build long term value in prominent consumer brands purchased hart schaffner marx along with hmx s other properties . references edit dawn mccarty and michael bathon hmx acquisition files to sell assets to authentic brands bloomberg october 19 2012 hartschaffnermarx.com about price charles matlack 1922 . a critical study of the development of the poster in continental europe england and america . g.w. bricka . p. 200 . for some years the group of men who made posters for this firm consisted of edward pennfield john e. sheridan leon gordon and f. nelson abbott 1 dead link http www.commondreams.org newswire 2009 05 11 10 a b aria hughes david hart for hart schaffner marx men s rtw spring 2017 women s wear daily july 14 2016 external links edit hart schaffner marx retail website hartmarx company history accessed sep 1 2008 new york stock exchange profile accessed sep 1 2008 hmx google finance accessed sep 1 2008 yahoo.com hartmarx corp. hmx profile accessed sep 1 2008 january 23 2009 us bankruptcy filing retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title hartmarx & oldid 743336639 categories companies based in chicagocompanies established in 1911defunct retail companies of the united statescompanies delisted from the new york stock exchangeclothing manufacturersdefunct companies based in illinoishidden categories all articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from september 2010 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 9 october 2016 at 04 57 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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