E. R. Haggar Sr., who helped build a family clothing store in Texas into a national brand of slacks and shirts, died this week at his home in Dallas. He was 88.
Haggar had retired in 1996 as chairman emeritus of the company, a leading maker of men’s apparel. Its wrinkle-free shirts and tab-waist expandable trousers — along with sport coats, suits, shorts and women’s wear — are sold in about 10,000 stores around the country.
Its largest customers are Wal-Mart, Kohl’s and J. C. Penney, and there are more than 70 Haggar outlet stores. Haggar makes lower-priced brands, both for mass merchandisers and for other stores to sell under their own labels.
Edmond Ralph Haggar Sr. was born in 1916, in Bristow, Okla., a son of J. M. (or Joseph Marion) Haggar, who moved to Dallas and set up shop in 1926. E. R. was 14 when he started helping out.
He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1938, having spent his summers getting to know every aspect of the business. He became a full-time Haggar salesman in 1938, then spent World War II in the Army Air Force, becoming a captain.
After the war, he played a pivotal role in making Haggar nationally known, with the help of advertising on network television, then in its infancy. Among the brand’s selling points were trousers finished at the bottom so the buyer did not need a tailor to alter them to fit.
Haggar became president of the Haggar Clothing Co. in 1948, and held that position until 1971, when he became chairman. He was elected honorary chairman emeritus in 1991 and retired five years later.
Once retired, he published an account of how he and two siblings, Joe Jr. and Rosemary Haggar Vaughn, had fostered their father’s business, “Big Ed Haggar and the Family Behind an Apparel Giant.”