Sports Style-Setter
Two things have happened to the sportswear industry in the last four decades: one is the 40-hour week, the other is HAROLD S. HIRSCH '29.
Hal Hirsch is Chairman of the Board of White Stag Manufacturing Company, the world's leading manufacturer of quality skiwear and one of the country's top producers of active sportswear. B.H. (Before Hirsch) people wore old clothing for sports and relaxing. Wealthy skiers or yachtsmen had outfits custom made or imported from Europe.
Shortly after graduation Hirsch was recalled from graduate study to aid the family business in Portland, Oregon, in the throes of the Depression. It was a canvas goods factory founded in 1884 which had made sails for clipper ships that came around the Horn.
Dartmouth had nurtured his interest in skiing and Hirsch refocused production on outdoor sports clothing. Using a few sewing machines in a corner of the factory, he gambled on $1200 worth of skiwear. To distinguish his line from the family Hirsch-Weis Manufacturing Co., he originated a label which translated the company name from the German to "White Stag."
Then having designed and made the ski clothes, he had to "hit the road" and sell them. Strangely, the growth of skiing in America was depression-generated, born perhaps of the people's need to forget their troubles in outdoor activity. One of Hirsch's earliest customers was a store in Hanover.
Not content with his success with skiwear, he sought to broaden production into play clothes for other seasons and balance the factory work load. The company had long produced hatch covers, tarpaulins, tents, awnings, and other canvas products. Hirsch softened this canvas, colored it, and named it "Sailcloth," still a traditional fabric for sportswear.
Another Hirsch innovation capitalized on what every sailor had known since the invention of dungarees - they acquire character when they fade. So he faded his denim first, then used it to make sailing pants, pedal pushers, jackets, and shorts.
Soon White Stag's fame outshone Hirsch-Weis and that became the name of the corporation, with Hirsch-Weis Canvas Products Co. as a division of White Stag.
Hirsch claims the company's growth paralleled the surge in the U.S. to all recreational sports:
"As long as the present political trend continues, the American people seem to be earning more money and working less, which leaves them more leisure time to spend this new money. Our company is devoted to designing, manufacturing, and distributing both apparel and equipment for the enjoyment of the outdoors by America's great sports-minded population."
Hirsch became president of the corporation in 1956 and has been chairman of the board since 1964. A year ago White Stag merged with Warner Bros., not the movie producers but the firm that manufactures women's foundation garments and lingerie and has among its many apparel and textile subsidiaries Hathaway and Lady Hathaway Shirts. Hirsch is a director of the parent company.
Since the merger White Stag has enjoyed its biggest year yet, and Hirsch says of future plans: "Practically nothing in the world is inaccessible for most of our citizens anymore, neither places, nor time, nor money. And I don't intend that the clothing or equipment for their recreational enjoyment will be inaccessible either."
