Back in the days when “family businesses” were owned by the family that created them, Haspel was owned by the Haspel family- and they made their clothing in New Orleans.  My father was very friendly with the Haspels.  Chipp was one of the first companies to offer Haspel suits through the mail. As a pup I remember my father bringing home boxes of swatches that we stuffed into glasine envelopes and mailed to the Chipp mailing list. The suits - poplins, seersukers, hairlines, and seercords- sold at retail for $32.  In the early 50’s my father and Josh Tonkel ( Mr. Tonkel was president of Haspel. I remember his drawl being thick enough to cut with a knife.) came up with an idea they thought would impact the summer washable suit market- “The Shacket”. “The Shacket” was a naturel poplin suit .  The jacket of the suit had short sleeves.  It was intended to have a quarter of an inch of one’s shortsleeve shirt extend beyond the end of the jacket sleeve.  In far better risk management than was exibited by AIG and the banking industry in our current economic crisis, enough matching cloth was set aside so that a correction - replacement of the short sleeves by standard long sleeves- could be implemented if the experiment did not fly.  And crash it did !  Very few were sold. The following season the “shackets” had their short sleeves replaced by standard sleeves and were no longer “shackets”. Even Joe DiMaggio struck out once in a while.

Mike  Burke was one of our more colorful customers. As an OSS operative he worked behind enemy lines in France during World War II.  In 1951 he hitched a ride on the luggage rack of the MG my folks bought and were driving around France and Switzerland. His resume included a stint with the CIA, a little time in Hollywood, and managing the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. When CBS bought the New York Yankees, Bill Paley tapped Mike to run the team.  Mike decided he wanted to add a little class to the storied franchise- particularly when they were traveling.  To that end he had us go down to spring training to measure the team for traveling “uniforms”- Blue Blazer, grey trousers, shirts and ties.  All the Yankee legends of the 50s were there. Retired Joltin Joe DiMaggio was in attendance. The players thought the whole process was a pain in the ass. They mumbled and groaned. The clothing was made and delivered to the team.  Players who were acquired mid season or called up from the minors to the “Big Team”  were sent down to 44th street to be measued for the “uniform”. All the active players hated the clothes. They refused to wear them.  Joe DiMaggio loved his blazer.  He was spokesman for Mr. Coffee and a bank - the name of the bank is lost somewhere in my memory.  Whenever comercials were being shot he had production company buy him a new blazer for the shoot. We made 10 blazers for him. He had the reputation of not paying for anything. He never paid us for his blazers- the first was paid for by the Yankees and the rest were paid for by the production companies.  When Mr. DiMaggio died I chuckled at the thought of what he had in his closet.