{ MASTER OF MENSWEAR }
Ronny is one of the finest human beings on Earth. It is rare to find a person who can build a monopoly in our business while maintaining the highest level of integrity.” Morris Goldfarb, G-III
Ronny with Pope Benedict XVI
Ronny with Ronald Reagan
might find valuable. Take the initiative, go the extra mile (whatever it takes) and just make it happen.” Among the myriad examples of making it happen, Ronny remembers all the years he tried in vain to get an order out of Dayton Hudson. “Then at some point, one of their vendors disappointed them and they desperately needed 2,000 suits in two weeks. I called Claire, our COO, and she immediately said, ‘You’ve got it!’ So we made them 2,000 suits in Montreal, shipped them within two weeks and ultimately became their biggest supplier. I’ve always believed that you have to earn your business every day; you can’t ever give anyone a chance to take it away from you. And these are the lessons I’ve tried to teach my salesmen.” Peerless USA has about 20 star sellers and a total of 50 associates in the New York office. “Our NYC team does the selling, merchandising and advertising (all in-house); everything else is done from Montreal. Claire, Tony, Pat and their team run the whole inside of the business and they are amazing. I get angry when people say Peerless won’t be the same without me. My sellers are the best in the business: most have been with me for 20-plus years; they’re all under 50 and they’re terrific! With youth on their side and all the new technology available to them, this company will keep getting stronger even after I retire: Peerless is the Rock of Gibraltar.” With more than two dozen top licenses (mostly American designers and celebrities including Calvin, Ralph, Tommy, Michael Kors, John Varvatos, Todd Snyder, Hart Schaffner Marx, Sean John, Ryan Seacrest, IZOD, Michael Strahan) and a strong private label business, there’s no doubt that Peerless already owns a disproportionate share of the U.S. clothing market. The two Peerless-owned brands, Tallia Orange (fashion) and TalioRED (luxury fabrics at
great value), are also growing rapidly. “The hardest part is ensuring that each line has a distinct point of view,” Ronny explains. “Within all the collections, there’s not one repeat swatch. It’s a full-time commitment but I believe that each collection must be 100-percent exclusive.” (Editor’s note: you can’t walk into Ronny’s office without finding piles of swatches on his desk; his associates say he still gets as excited about selecting swatches as he did 25 years ago.) One of Ronny’s first suit licenses was Kasper, a relatively successful women’s wear designer who was virtually unknown in men’s. “Truthfully, I had no interest in acquiring this label—all I could think of was a friendly ghost. But Glen Schanen and Jim Edelman from Macy’s strolled into my office one day, encouraging me to take the license (and casually mentioning that Kasper was Macy’s CEO Allen Questrom’s best friend). Of course I wanted this fantastic label; I told them yes without hesitation.” Sometime later, Ronny received a phone call from another good friend, who happened to be dating Ralph Lauren’s secretary, asking if Peerless was going after the Chaps label. “So I called Peter Strom who told me I was too late—the contract was already at the lawyer’s. I asked him how he could give it away without even seeing what we could do. I ran over to his office (it was a Tuesday) and pleaded with him to give me until Friday and I’d show him a garment he couldn’t refuse. I called Alvin Segal, who said he could do it, then ran out and bought yardage (gray flannel and navy pinstripes: we couldn’t go wrong) and rushed to the Polo store to buy suits to copy. Friday came and I went with my daughter Mindy (a Tufts graduate and our first employee) to show our samples to Strom. The first thing he said was ‘These look more like Polo than Chaps,’ to which I
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MR JULY 2017 | MR-Mag.com