Apparel Companies K

Welcome to the K section of the Apparel Search Fashion Company Names directory. The chip grid below is this letter's table of contents: 10 company profiles, one chip each, in alphabetical order. It is a letter of American wardrobe institutions and the groups that own them. A handbag label born from six silhouettes files a few pages from the luxury group that owns Gucci; the shoe that coined the word sneaker sits beside the denim spinoff that owns Wrangler and Lee; and two great value retailers - one kept as history after its parent's bankruptcy, one still filed with its full expansion timeline - show the opposite fates available to the middle of the American market. Every profile here carries its editorial links, photographs and facts in full.

Two reading notes belong on this hub. First, several K filings are dated snapshots and are kept that way: Kmart's store counts belong to 2006 and 2009 and its profile is headed by the October 2018 Sears Holdings Chapter 11 announcement, Kohl's history closes in 2009, and Kate Spade's shop counts belong to its 2015 summary before the 2017 Tapestry chapter. Second, ownership is this letter's hidden thread - Kate Spade under Tapestry, Kayser-Roth under Italy's Golden Lady, Kipling inside VF, and Kontoor spun out of VF in 2019 with two of denim's oldest names. Quote any figure from this letter with its period attached, as each profile does.

Reading the K Profiles: Colour, Canvas, Denim and the Middle of the Market

Colour and canvas open the letter. Kate Spade built a global lifestyle brand on crisp colour, graphic prints and playful sophistication, starting from six handbag silhouettes in 1993. Keds built an American classic on almost nothing at all - canvas and a soft rubber sole in 1916 - and coined the word sneaker in the process, while its PRO-Keds sibling earned a cult following on NBA courts in the 1970s. Between them sits Kayser-Roth, the vertically integrated legwear maker whose Hue and No nonsense brands show the mass and fashion ends of the same hosiery factory system, manufacturing in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Making and owning fill the middle of the letter. Kellwood designs into white space for retailers with a nine-brand women's portfolio run from the City of Industry and sold from Garment Center showrooms; Komar, established in 1908, runs sleepwear and intimates divisions on a global sourcing, inspection and distribution machine; and Kering manages a dozen luxury houses in two families - fashion and leather goods, watches and jewelry - plus an eyewear company begun as a 2014 startup. Kipling's one-line VF filing is the letter's shortest record and is kept at exactly that length.

The middle of the market closes the letter. Kmart's historical profile holds the discount era in its own numbers - 1,416 stores in 2006, 1,368 in 2009, three formats from traditional stores to 24-hour Super Centers - under the shadow of its parent's 2018 bankruptcy filing. Kohl's, positioned deliberately between department stores and discounters since 1962, files the growth story of the same middle ground: 40 stores at the 1986 buyout, a 1992 IPO, and coast-to-coast expansion to 49 states by 2009. And Kontoor Brands ends the letter by returning to product: a 2019 company whose entire substance is two denim names from 1889 and 1947, still designing for fit. If you know of an important fashion company beginning with K that is not listed here, you are welcome to make suggestions, as the page hub invited.

A final note on how to cite this letter. Several K filings are snapshots with the period built into the fact itself: Kmart's store counts belong to January 2006 and January 2009 with a separate October 2018 bankruptcy note, Kohl's operating summary and timeline close in 2009, Kate Spade's shop and door counts are its 2015 summary, and the Kontoor spinoff belongs to May 2019. Each profile keeps its period attached to its numbers, so a researcher quoting any figure from this letter should quote the period with it - that habit is what keeps a kept directory honest as it ages.