Keeping Up with the Big Changes

When you are a big and successful fur manufacturer with clients all over the world, it is easy to lose touch with the end user and keep doing what you always did and hoping for different results, but that is not so at Gliagias Brothers of New York and Kastoria.

It's a clean and ultra modern plant in Galattni, a small town on the outskirts of the Greek fur capital, has 500 employees working full time, and few factories can match the output of this fourth generation family owned business.

Few are able to match its ability to change, either.

"The fur industry has been going through a period of great change," said Chris Gliagias, the brother who is the face of the company in New York, "and we stay abreast because of the closeness we maintain to our retailers. We have always been known for well made, full-length mink and beaver coats of great value, and we still make them, because they have never really gone out of favor. But as tastes and styles have changed, so has the output of Gliagias. We have the benefit of scale and with modern communications, we can turn on a dime to fill our customers' needs."

He pointed to the racks in his showroom at 307 Seventh Avenue in the heart of New York's fur district. They contained short, youthful styles in long or sheared mink, sable, muskrat, raccoon and full-length Astrakhan or Persian lamb coats, which many think are poised for a comeback.

Some mink was fox trimmed in a rainbow of colors, others skillfully sheared and grooved to bring out the natural beauty of the original.

"Retailers often bring or send us photos of garments that appeal to their customers," Gliagias said, "with the question 'Can you get me something like that?' Our answer is always yes. At a time when fur is about to be in short supply, we have the raw materials, we have the craftsmanship and we have the agility to do it."

Gliagias said that his plant straddles two different worlds.

"Increasingly we have been making for the Russian market," he said. "It has grown faster than anyone could have imagined. But we also serve the U.S. and other western markets, and the product varies greatly."

For further information contact: Fur World, Creative Marketing Plus, 19 West 21st Street, Suite 403, New York, NY 10010; Tal.: (212) 727-1210; Fax: (212) 727-1218; fharrow@creativemarketingplus.com.

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