Shmata Trade Reader's Comment

The Shmata Business
By Joshua Tanembaum (joshua@montrealtribune.com)

Peerless Clothing: The news being spread around that Alvin Segal is closing down Peerless operation in Montreal and moving everything to Mexico is not true according to Alvin’s secretary named Laura. I will be following up this story when Alvin returns my call.

Ginette Provost – Shown above was recently contracted by LaSalle College to teach international trade. Provost, a linguist who speak English, French, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages I cannot recall graduated from Bois de Boulogne College, took import/export courses at McGill University, fashion merchandising from Institute of Fashion Merchandising all located in Montreal. She has been a big help to Canadian garment makers both on production, export and marketing. She will be an asset to the group of professors of this institution made famous around the world by its founder Jacques Lefebre. Should anyone interested to know more about this lady, you can log-on to her own website at http://canadafashionworld.homepage.com. You can find the link from within this site.

S. Cohen Inc: David Cohen’s sons Peter and Benjamin recently hired former Peerless Clothing’s merchandiser Daryl Henson, and some salespeople, Americans if I am not mistaken to expand their US market.

I was told that their market is strong in Canada, but I presumed they were encouraged by Hanson that he could help them enter the huge market in the North, just like he saw done at Peerless. According to our reporter the Cohens lost a lot of money from the bankruptcy of Eaton’s. Good thing they have loyal customers like Schreters in Montreal, and they also benefited from the poor performance of Cartel/Mondo Uomo, boosting sales in their in-stock program.

Surprisingly, there’s high demand on Cohen’s goods that they are now having problem meeting their production schedule, especially with their production of trousers since100% are done by contractors. But, there is shortage of reliable contractors in Montreal; this prompted them to set up their own plant in St. Therese, about 35 kilometers north of the city, 30 additional workers are going to be hired, I was told.