Haberdashed Against the Rocks

A. Sulka, the 106-year-old luxury haberdashery, will reportedly close its last shop in the United States early next year.

Sulka is said to be moving out of the Manhattan space, at Madison Avenue and 69th Street in the old Westbury Hotel, in early 2002. It will then be leased to Gucci by Vendome Luxury Group, the division of Compagnie Financire Richemont (Zug, Switzerland) that owns Sulka. Gucci will reportedly combine the ex-Sulka space with adjoining property being vacated by two other Vendome properties, James Purdey & Sons Ltd. and Montblanc.

Sulka, known for its hand-tailored men's shirts and ties, once dressed Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor. But it evidently didn't dress enough of today's high-end luxury consumers. Six Sulka stores in the U.S. have been closed this year, as well as Sulka stores in Paris and London.

Sulka, started in 1895 by traveling salesman Amos Sulka and custom-shirtmaker Leon Wormser, began on lower Broadway making shirts for husky, hard-to-fit New York City firemen and policemen. It eventually became the shirtmaker for wealthy households'butlers, which exposed the goods to the butlers'employers.

During the Depression in the 1930s, when sales of luxury goods plummeted, the company stayed in business by taking in customers'laundry so the well-made goods by Sulka and others would not be ruined at ordinary commercial laundries. But it couldn't survive today's changing trend in high-end menswear toward more-stylish designer brands.

Compagnie Financire Richemont, through its Vendome Luxury Group subsidiary, also markets Cartier jewelry, Piaget and Baume & Mercier watches, Alfred Dunhill leather goods and Montblanc pens. It owns 80% of jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels and controls 48% of U.S. catalog marketer Hanover Direct (Domestications, Silhouettes).