A store, a museum, and a love letter to Cleveland
Sculptor Steven Tatar, owner of Ohio Knitting Mills, is on a mission to create a new brand of clothing founded on garments created at Ohio Knitting Mills, a now-closed Cleveland industrial mainstay. His Ohio Knitting Mills shop, at 6505 Detroit Road in Cleveland, highlights the history of Cleveland’s once-thriving garment industry and shows off virgin vintage clothing of rich textures that are part of that history. His collection of design artifacts crafted during the post-World War II area through the early 1970s are displayed and available for sale in a warm and inviting space at Gordon Square.
Some people expect the shop to sell yarn and knitting needles, but instead they find sweaters, vests, dresses, and scarves knit from quality materials and created from inventive patterns that cannot be found elsewhere today. The garments were made at the Ohio Knitting Mills, located in National Screw and Tack Building at Scranton Avenue and 71st Street from 1927-69, and then at E. 61st and Euclid from 1969 through 2005. The Ohio Knitting Mills factory, founded by Harry Stone and Walker Woodworth in 1927, grew to become one of this country’s largest knitwear producers and employed 1,000 workers at one time. It was at the center of Cleveland’s thriving garment industry. The men started the company with $500 and a car, and initially made just menswear. During World War II, the company manufactured hats and sweaters for the Department of War. Three generations ran the mill for 76 years and produced knitwear for numerous retailers including J.C. Penney, Sears, Roebuck and Co., and Montgomery Ward, as well as for labels ranging from Pendleton to Van Heusen. The company’s sweater girl in the 1950s was Norma Jean Baker, who eventually changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. (Ohio Knitting Mills, though not directly involved with Norma Jean, benefited from the “sweater girl” trend.)
So how did Steven Tatar get involved? In 2004-2005, Tatar became friends with Gary Rand, Stone’s grandson, and he learned that the company started putting away samples of garments they produced after World War II when America’s expanding and newly upwardly-mobile middle class was looking for ready-to-wear knits. Gary had a large inventory of clothing and accessories made at the family’s factory and wasn’t sure what to do with it, which piqued Tatar’s interest as an artist with a passion for preserving design. The men worked out a deal—Gary would make available the family’s artifact treasures to Tatar in exchange for Tatar building the Ohio Knitting Mills brand of clothing.
Tatar says he was impassioned by the “combination of gorgeous clothing and soulful history of a family that employed thousands of hopeful people, the American dream.” Cleveland was at the center of this American dream and was second only to New York in creation of garments. Commercially available ready-to-wear clothing in many different styles and types took off after World War II when Cleveland was home to such apparel makers as Joseph & Feiss, Bobbie Brooks, Richman Brothers (first fully-integrated manufacturer of clothing). Cleveland’s garment industry was strong from 1900 through 1960, part of a larger industry which included 25 manufacturers in a close-knit group that worked together to supply the market.“We were an important part of the creation of popular fashion at that time,” Tatar says. Americans embraced an active lifestyle and upward mobility, and America was a fashion capital in a de facto way, as it found itself the supplier for a growing middle-class culture and a major exporter of knit tops, some of which became associated with European style, like the poor boy shirt, in a kind of reverse exporting.
Tatar started out doing some trunk shows, weekend events to gauge response, and then, in 2006, took the inventory to Smith Street in Brooklyn, knowing “brands are created in New York.” The store did great for two years, and Tatar sold 1,500 pieces at the Smith Street shop, online, and through trunk shows and special events. With the core inventory getting low and the economy teetering, Tatar closed the New York store and came back to Cleveland to begin to look at how to get into production. When space became available at Gordon Square, it was offered to Tatar, and he set up what he calls a “store, museum, and love letter to Cleveland,” the interior of which was furnished from salvaged factory fixtures. He’s selling the Ohio Knitting Mills artifacts from 1947 to 1974 while looking towards producing more Ohio Knitting Mills brand garments. In addition to the sweaters, he’s selling accessories such as fisherman’s gloves to go with the sweaters and other locally-made goods, like soaps from a Chagrin Falls entrepreneur.
Steven Tatar was so engaged by the story of Ohio Knitting Mills that he wrote a book with Denise Grollmus, that includes photographs by Anna Wolf and patterns provided by a team of professional knitters and edited by Alexandra Virgiel. The book, called The Ohio Knitting Mills Knitting Book, tells the stories of the owners of the Ohio Knitting Mills, the designers who created the goods, and the factory workers who made it all possible. Tatar’s excitement about the history of the garment industry in Cleveland and for Ohio Knitting Mills is evident throughout the book and during conversations with him. Because Ohio Knitting Mills is about the creation of beautiful garments, the book includes 26 patterns for bags, vests, dresses, and other apparel that knitters can create themselves. Tatar explains, “It’s largely patterns of some of our favorite sweaters from 1940s through 1970s recreated to be hand knits. Some are for beginners, some are more challenging. We used these individual historic pieces as a context for telling a story relative to the social milieu of each of their representative eras.”
Explore Ohio Knitting Mills at 6505 Detroit Road in Gordon Square, open Wed thru Sat from 1-8PM and Sun from 1-6PM. Give them a call at 216-272-6375 or click over to http://www.OhioKnittingMills.com.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose book Ohio’s Lake Erie Wineries will be published by Arcadia next spring. Her passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers. Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.ClaudiaTallerMusings.blogspot.com or at http://www.OhioLakeErieWineries.blogspot.com.
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