Another interesting little find from deep in the archives. From fall and winter 1927. This nine page booklet, published by the Printz-Biederman company, appears to have been a department store giveaway.
It features coats for the cooler months, and was clearly pitched towards the more well-to-do as all of the garments feature fur collars and cuffs.
The least exotic fur described is Beaver - with one coat noted as having a collar edged in "Beaverette" - which was presumedly is a man-made plush fabric. A bit like our modern faux-fur.
The other coats are described as having fur trim made of Manchurian Wolf, Patagonian Fox, Arabian Lynx, Vicuna Fox, Muskrat Coney, Russian Fox, and Peschauniki Fox.
I was able to track down a newspaper ad from the 1920's featuring "Printzess" coats. Prices (in the 1920s) for their garments are noted as $ 26.75 and up to $ 95.00. Which is roughly about $ 365.00 to $ 1300.00 in 2020 dollars.
One of the most interesting things about this little booklet is that the coats are being "modeled" by silent film stars of the era. I have some other catalogs that have head shots of people that have been pasted onto line drawings of garments. However, it looks more likely that the faces here are an artist's rendering based on photos from another source.
The Printz-Biederman Company was one of the oldest American manufacturers of women's apparel. It was organized in Dec. 1893 by master tailor Moritz Printz.
A native of Austria, Printz came to Cleveland in 1872 to work for his brother-in-law, cloak manufacturer David Black. The head designer for D. Black & Co., Printz stayed in Cleveland when Black moved his company to New York in 1894. Along with his sons, Alexander and Michael, and his son-in-law, Joseph Biederman, Printz founded the Printz-Biederman Co. as a partnership.
The company incorporated in 1904 with Alexander Printz as president, a position he held until 1954.Operating from a loft at 102 St. Clair, Printz-Biederman grossed $100,000 in its first year of operation. In 1903 the company moved to 71 Bank St. (1213 W. 6th St.) and remained in that area until 1934, when it built a new plant at 1974 E. 61st St.
Sales reached $6.44 million in 1922, and the firm merged with H. Black & Co. that year. By 1933 it had sales offices in New York, Boston, and Chicago in addition to Cleveland.
Max Reiter, cofounder of Ritmore Sportswear Co. took over Printz-Biederman in 1954, it employed 1,000 workers, two-thirds of them in Cleveland, and annual sales were $8 million.
During the 1960s and 1970s the company lost business. In the late 1970s, its line of products was limited to ladies' suits and coats, and the firm employed only 40 Cleveland workers. The Printz-Biederman Co. closed in 1978.
(If you would like to see more images from this catalog -- or download a copy -- consider becoming a supporter of
Revival Designed on Paetron.)
0 comment