Hart Schaffner Marx cranking out thousands of suits in Des Plaines
Lennart B. Bjorklund is very proud of his lapels.
The executive vice president of manufacturing for HMX Tailored is responsible for Hart Schaffner Marx's main manufacturing facility in Des Plaines, where a dizzying combination of computers, mechanics and people turn out sports coats and coats for suits and tuxedos since the 1960s.
The company itself started 122 years ago in Chicago.
Today, it cuts and sews nearly 200,000 suits a year in Des Plaines.
Now, about those lapels: Compare a Hart Schaffner Marx lapel with a less expensive one and you'll notice a difference. Bjorklund said it hangs and rolls just right, with life and style. The secret is a patented method that uses a fused interlining for some of the all-important jacket front and separate, stitched canvas for other parts.
Many finicky steps go into making a suit look good, including making sure stripes or plaids line up before the fabric is cut, examining each bolt and marking any flaws, notching pieces so the all-important shoulder pad is inserted in the right position.
Bjorklund is proud of the people who make the suits; he brags that some have worked 50 years and are better at their job than any machine. But he also notes that the computer-directed machines make each piece and each row of stitching more precisely than an army of skilled tailors.
He stops a tour at a machine with a single woman operator, which doesn't look much different from dozens of others in the large room where most employees do just one small part of a job over and over.
"This is a wonderful machine," said Bjorklund. "It does a very difficult job. See the dart on the front of a coat. This machine actually sews and cuts the dart. It insures quality, and there's no bubble at the top. It's difficult to do it manually every time."
The cutting room is fascinating. The fabric is spread along huge tables, where vacuum power holds it to the beds. Computer-operated reciprocating knives cut the pieces to fit the patterns. Computers even figure how frequently the blades should be sharpened, according to the type of fabrics.
Computers keep track of many things in the factory as well as helping to do individual parts of the process. For example, the jacket and trousers are cut side by side from a bolt of fabric, then the jacket pieces are distributed to stations around the factory where they are stitched, pressed, trimmed and eventually sewn together. The trouser pieces travel to a factory in Alabama, and when the pants are finished and returned to Des Plaines, the computer helps reunite the pieces of the suits.
Hart Schaffner Marx by the numbers
795: The average number of dollars you'd pay for a Hart Schaffner Marx suit.
695-1,600: The number of dollars you'd pay for a custom Hart Schaffner Marx suit.
3-4: The number of weeks you'd wait for a custom suit.
180: Steps in the making of each suit.
600: Total number of people who work in the Des Plaines factory and warehouse.
450: Number who work in the cutting room and sewing shop.
11: Average hourly wage in the sewing shop; $12 in the cutting room; benefits increase that to $16 or $17.
12: The number of weeks it takes to train operator of a machine that helps figure amounts of fullness to sew at different points around a sleeve; 30 weeks without the computerized machine.
2 million yards: Fabric storage capacity in Des Plaines in huge cardboard tubes.
180,000: The square foot size of the factory.
70,000: The square foot size of first floor of three-level warehouse.
190,000: Number of Hart Schaffner Marx jackets made each year in Des Plaines.
Star suits
It's been well publicized that President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration wear - even the tuxedo - were made in the Hart Schaffner Marx factory in Des Plaines.
He has also worn custom-made suits from the factory for special events like his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention and the victory rally Nov. 4 in Chicago.
While the selection of union-made clothing from Obama's home state seems like a natural, and for a while the company bragged about it on its Web site, company officials now say they cannot talk about a client without his permission.
Here are other celebrities known for wearing suits from the Chicago-based company.
• President Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan
• Actor Bill Paxton in his role as Bill Henrickson on "Big Love," an HBO television show about a Mormon family that practices polygamy.
• Golf legend Jack Nicklaus
• Johnny Carson, a late television personality
• Bob Hope, a late comedian