Sakowitz

Sakowitz was a men's clothing store which grew into a small chain of family-owned high-end department stores based in Houston, Texas. It operated from 1902 until 1990. Sakowitz was responsible for launching many of the now-famous European fashion designers in America - among them Andre' Courreges, Yves St. Laurent Rive Gauche, Zandra Rhoades, Givenchy, and Erminegildo Zegna. The Sakowitz catalogues were mailed to all fifty states and abroad.

Origins
Leebe Shaikovich, was an Ashkenazi Jewish man from Korostyshiv, Volhynia, today part of Ukraine, but at that time part of the Russian Empire. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1886, where his name was changed upon arrival to Louis Sakowitz. In Galveston, Texas, Louis began a peddler business, taking orders and delivering clothes on a bicycle to the many merchant seamen. Then, he and his son Samuel opened a small store near the wharves, while brothers Simon and Tobias worked elsewhere around town, for the time being. But in 1902 they opened the Sakowitz Brothers gentlemen's haberdashery in Galveston at 2113 Market Street, then expanded into booming Houston in 1911 at 308 Main Street, which Simon ran while Tobias ran the then-larger Galveston operation. The location in Galveston was closed in 1917 and consolidated into the Houston store.

Downtown Houston flagship
By 1929, the original Houston store on 308 Main Street had relocated to the Gulf Building at 720 Main Street by noted Houston architect Alfred C. Finn.

In 1951, Sakowitz moved again to a five story, modernist store at 1111 Main Street (Dallas and Main) also designed by Finn. This was the first time that Sakowitz truly "ran a department store", as it now directly managed the women's (and several other) departments, which prior to then had been franchised to other operators.

The store, whose exterior has been kept but whose interior has been turned into a parking garage, contained:


 * 8,073 feet of polished and antique mirrors
 * 10,872 incandescent and fluorescent lamps
 * 32 public telephones
 * 205 store telephones
 * 254000 sqft of space
 * The landmark Sky Terrace restaurant
 * 2 “Red Reminder” phones. Phones at the store’s entrances that can be used to call any department in case a patron overlooked an item while shopping.

Expansion
In 1956, Sakowitz opened its first suburban location at Gulfgate Mall.

In 1959, a large, 187000 sqft, freestanding store was opened on Westheimer Road at Post Oak near The Galleria.

Eventually, the chain expanded to 16 locations, of which 14 were in Texas, one in Scottsdale, Arizona and another in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Sakowitz II format
Some of the new sububrban stores were designated as the "Sakowitz II" format, essentially junior department stores, smaller in scale and targeting markets within a 3 to 5 mile radius of each store, rather than 5 to 20 mile like full-line stores did. The Champions Village store was the first in 1978; another in Clear Lake City (a.k.a. Ports O'Call or NASA), followed in 1979. Such locations included Champions Village in Northwest Houston, and near NASA.

There were purposefully no floor-to-ceiling walls in the Sakowitz II stores, and salespeople could wait on customers in different parts of the stores – men's, women's and children's; apparel, accessories and shoes. The smaller stores followed what Sakowitz's "I.D.A."merchandising strategy: innovational, directional and acceptational. Innovational fashion at the store's center, directional areas radiate from there, and acceptational merchandise lined the edges.

1985 bankruptcy
By 1985, Sakowitz stores all together totalled 1100000 sqft in area. That year, an overextended Sakowitz filed for bankruptcy, and as part of the plan, they closed or sold off all the stores outside Greater Houston, as well as the 225000 sqft downtown Houston store and the Gulfgate Mall location. Four profitable stores remained, all in suburban Houston: Post Oak, Town & Country, and two smaller stores at Clear View (NASA Road) and Champions.

Hooker ownership
In the late 1980s, Australian developer L. J. Hooker proposed an upscale mall in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, Forest Fair Mall, now Forest Fair Village. Hooker's plans called for Sakowitz to be one of the mall's anchor stores, along with B. Altman and Bonwit Teller, two upscale chains based in New York City.

In 1988, Hooker purchased controlling interest in all three chains so that they could open locations at the new mall and a number of other malls that it had already planned or envisioned, including the proposed Lake Fair Mall in Tampa, Florida, as well as two New York State malls, Carousel Plaza (now Destiny USA) in Syracuse, and Walden Galleria in suburban Buffalo. Sakowitz opened its store there on March 31, 1989.

Liquidation
Only a few months after opening the Cincinnati mall with three of its department store, on August 9, 1989, Hooker filed for bankruptcy, due to debt accrued from its U.S. expansion. sold B. Altman back to its former owner, but proceeded to liquidate both Bonwit Teller and Sakowitz.

Over the course of 1990, all Sakowitz locations were closed, along with the Bonwit Teller and B. Altman chains.

Sakowitz Furs remains
Starting in 1976 originally Evans Fur Company leased Sakowitz' fur salons with Jerry Gronauer as manager. In 1986, Gronauer left Evans and started leasing the salon space from Sakowitz himself, and with his son, and the Gronauers continue to operate in a store near the old Post Oak Sakowitz store.

Table of stores
&ast;full-line department store