Local Manufacturer is all about Quality
Whenever I wear a Hickey Freeman suit I feel like I am MI6 Agent Bond, James Bond. I feel myself more intellectual, sensible, mature, calm, sly, self confident, daring and a person who never took “no” for an answer. That’s why I am still wear Hickey Freeman suits and I love to wear a Hickey Freeman suit just to feel myself as a James Bond, no matter how I may feel, I always come out on top.
Hickey Freeman was founded in 1899. The Hickey-Freeman Co. is the most distinguished of the once booming men’s clothing industry based in Rochester at the start of the 20th century. Hickey Freeman tailored clothing continues to be made in the same storied Rochester facility opened in 1912.
The Hartmarx Corporation bought the company in 1964 and after several changes of ownership, Grano Retail Investments acquired the company including the Rochester factory in 2013. Authentic Brands Group currently owns the brand, and neither is affiliated with the similarly-named H. Freeman, a brand owned by Individualized Apparel Group.
During the 1880s and 1890s, Jeremiah G. Hickey (1866–1960) was a bookkeeper for Wile, Brickner & Wile, then the largest manufacturer of men’s clothing in Rochester. His close friend Jacob L. Freeman (died 1925) was a private contractor of the firm. Together with fellow Wile, Brickner & Wile employees Thomas Mahon and George A. Brayer, they formed Hickey, Freeman, & Mahon Co. in 1899. Since Jeremiah (“Jerry”) Hickey contributed the most capital, and Mahon made no original investment, the name was changed in 1900 to the Hickey-Freeman Co.
In 1902, the company was able to take over the business and the larger premises of Michael Kolb & Co. Hickey-Freeman grew even more, and in 1908 it merged with Beckel, Baum & Leopold Co., retaining the Hickey-Freeman name. The president of Beckel, Baum & Leopold Co. was Emmett Baum, who became vice-president of Hickey-Freeman Co. after the merger. Baum was largely responsible for Hickey-Freeman’s decision in 1908 to manufacture only high quality clothing. At that time, ready-to-wear suits were seldom made with hand-craftsmanship of any quality, but Hickey-Freeman recognized the importance of quality in the manufacture of men’s clothing.
By 1912, Hickey-Freeman Co. had amassed enough capital and business to build a larger, more modern factory on N. Clinton Ave. on the city’s northern outskirts. Known as The Temple, this location was chosen in order to retain the company’s skilled workers, after a survey showed that a majority of the company’s employees lived within walking distance of this area. Although the new factory was one of the most complete facilities of its kind in the country, it became necessary for Hickey-Freeman to add space to the building twice more during the 1920s, to accommodate the company’s increased volume and over 1,700 employees.
In 2004, the factory underwent extensive renovations, funded in part by $4 million in state taxpayer money and $1 million from Rochester city taxpayers.
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 Hickey Freeman along with HMX’s other properties.
In 2013, Grano Retail Investments Inc., also owner of luxury tailored menswear brand Samuelsohn Ltd., acquired the assets of Hickey Freeman including the Rochester, NY factory. Today, Hickey Freeman tailored clothing continues to be made in the same storied Rochester facility, as it has been since 1899.
Men’s wear manufacturer Hickey Freeman launched a new era in 2013 when it was acquired by Canadian apparel investor Stephen Granovsky and his Grano Retail Investors (see “Hickey Freeman Is Back”). But some things have not changed, including the Keep Quality Up signs that adorn entrances and beams around the khaki-brick “Temple,” the 1912-built Hickey Freeman plant still operating today on North Clinton Avenue, in Rochester, New York. Judging from the cover of The Fall and Winter 1929 Catalogue, displayed in a vitrine in the lobby, the label’s new owners seem intent on returning Hickey to its core mission of creating “…in the mind of the American gentleman a higher regard for quality.”
“We are an old company with a new vision,” insists Roy Nicolls, Hickey Freeman’s new vice president of manufacturing, as we tour the rambling Temple on a mid-summer day. The venerable factory is operating at full employment, the company says, at least in part because of new deals signed with Ralph Lauren (who brought some Blue Label production back from Italy and licensed it to Hickey) and Dillard’s stores (whose signature suits are made here).
Like every clothing factory it displays the unglamorous side of the trade—huge, harshly lit no-nonsense work spaces where rows of people sew or steam press or sort. It doesn’t seem like part of the same enterprise as the sunny, urbane ads for Hickey suits shot by fashion pro Yu Tsai, but the people here are grateful to be at work again after all the company’s front office turmoil; the Temple is humming. Walking the floor you meet Assad, a quality manager from Palestine, and Rosaria from Calabria who teaches hand-sewing, or maybe Tong Wu from China or Salvator from Albania or Jamila from Afghanistan. It takes, as it turns out, a global village to make this “American brand made in America.” Which makes it very American indeed.
Hickey Freeman’s label, in the relatively near past, suffered from poor quality and heavy discounting, all of which the new management is working hard to redress. A recent hire tells us, “That sign, that ‘Keep the Quality Up?’ When you come for orientation they just drumbeat that into you. ‘That quality is all we got; we miss on that we can’t compete anymore. No quality? We’ve got no jobs…we’ve got nothing.”
In a sense, Hickey is moving forward by going back. True, thanks to an innovative deal with precision-cutting manufacturer Gerber, the Temple will soon feature state-of-the-art laser cutters. But it is a return to the hand-work that originally made Hickey Freeman’s name that the Grano regime is hanging its hat on. Some work, the company believes, simply can’t be duplicated by machines, like the suppleness of handsewn armholes, and the durability of hand-basted lapels.
