Kellwood Company

Kellwood Company is the American apparel manufacturer formed in 1961 from the merger of fifteen independent soft-goods suppliers to Sears, Roebuck and Co. — its name combining those of Sears executives Charles Kellstadt and Robert Wood — which became one of the largest makers of women's, juniors' and girls' apparel in the United States. Kellwood traded on the New York Stock Exchange as KWD until Sun Capital Partners took it private in February 2008 at $21 per share. In December 2016 Sun Capital sold Kellwood to an unnamed Hong Kong-based investor group, and the company continues privately, headquartered in the City of Industry, California, with brands including Parker, Devlin, Briggs NY, Democracy, Jax, Rewind and My Michelle.

Company Profile

The October 2013 summary catches the Sun Capital portfolio mid-rotation: most sales from women's wear — Rebecca Taylor, David Meister and Sag Harbor named as the draws — juniors and girls lines and accessories beside it, about twenty brands in total including My Michelle, Baby Phat, Phat Farm, Rewind, Vince and XOXO, outlet stores for Vince, Lamb & Flag and Rebecca Taylor, and mainstream brands such as Koret being shed as contemporary labels were added. Several of those names — Vince above all — later outgrew the parent that had assembled them.

The older summary remembers the Sears foundation plainly: a leading marketer of apparel and consumer soft goods outfitting 'the American family next door', headquartered then in St. Louis. The arc from a suppliers' cooperative for one retailer to a brand house supplying department stores, mass retailers, specialty boutiques and catalogues is the whole mid-century American apparel industry written in one company's life.

The range behind the name is women’s, juniors’ and girls’ apparel under owned and licensed brands. Its customers are department stores, mass retailers, specialty boutiques and catalogues. That combination — what is sold, and to whom — is the simplest way to place Kellwood Company in the industry: it explains the company's costs, its competitors and the kind of news that moved its shares when it had them. A change in either half of the combination, a new product category or a new customer, is usually the first sign that the business described in the older summaries is turning into something different.

Scale should be read from the dated summaries with their dates attached. Store counts, sales descriptions and market positions quoted there were the company's own account of itself in that year, and they are the right basis for comparing Kellwood Company with the other companies in this section — a component supplier against a retailer, or a catalogue house against a mall chain — as long as each figure is compared with figures from roughly the same period.

For current dealings, the snapshot at the top of this page is the place to start: it gives the company's present status — Private — Kellwood was taken private by Sun Capital Partners in February 2008 and was acquired by a Hong Kong-based investor group in December 2016; it continues as a private apparel manufacturer — and links to the official website, which is where current product ranges, store information and investor or corporate contacts are maintained. Anything in the dated summaries that conflicts with the snapshot should be read as the older position: summaries describe the year they are dated, and the snapshot describes the company as it stands now.

The stock record matters because Kellwood Company sat at a point where fashion meets the public markets: investors following the shares were really following orders for women’s, juniors’ and girls’ apparel from stores and catalogues. The dated company summaries gathered in this section were written for that audience, recording store counts, sales descriptions and company statements as they stood at the time. Read together with the current status above, they show both halves of the story — the business as it presented itself in its listed years, and what became of it afterwards.