The Case of the Lace

The first meaningful position I was asked to fill was to head up the Munsingwear Mens and Boys underwear division. It was challenging because while we had a wonderful reputation in the underwear field, and even though we made a much better product, we were well behind Jockey. To give them credit, they had jumped out using their name to great advantage and we were constantly having to overcome the leading position they held. Questions arose as to how do we strengthen our reputation and become more of a leader in that field. Several innovations took place. A new colored underwear was added and I gave it the title of "Undertones" This was before Men were to become interested in wearing colored underwear and this became a new and interesting item. We also developed a brief not only colored, but in a style appealing more to the new jeans that now were worn lower on the hips than in the past. These were called "Dynamite" and were now an essential part of our broader product line. Other innovations were introduced. I had R and D develop a fabric that I wanted to add to a ski line. It was a double fabric that had the faculty of "wicking" moisture away from the body and absorbing it into the outer layer. I had several samples made up and sent them to men I knew were ski enthusiasts and have never lived down the chiding of my friend Herbie who raved about the new ski underwear in our line. I had to tell him that our Quality Control department had turned down my request to put it into production because it didn't meet our standards. Herbie claims it was the finest ski underwear he has ever worn and we missed the boat on the entire ski market. But all that aside, the diamond in the rough that I showed at one of our stockholder meetings was a shorter than ever stretchy mens brief. It had no fly, cut very low and was snug to the body and if I may use the expression, was designed to appeal to the Gay men of the day. In preparations to speak to those gathered at the stockholders meeting I had it stuck in the top breast pocket of my suit and in describing some of the new things we would be introducing in the underwear division concluded my report by pulling the lace brief out with a flourish. Literally, a gasp went through those assembled there. Flash bulbs were popping. People were laughing excitedly and it became the sensation of the moment. After the excitement died down and I had returned to my office, reporters from three newspapers all came in wanting to take my picture with our new product. It was almost laughable because I knew it would only be a very small part of our total business but it had generated enough excitement that my picture was in the trade papers. The brief was pictured with a news story and I had calls from various radio news jockeys who put me on their speakers so their audience would be made aware of this new product. All of this attention to a lacey, stretchy, garment that was NEW. The case of the lace resounded through news world and for a "brief" moment I was newsworthy. It was fun!!

The Nostalgia of Age

As the continuing press of age impacts me, my sense of nostalgia closes in on my memories and I begin to think of meaningful things that took place in my life. I recall, while fairly new in a position at Munsingwear, that when I had some free time, I would go to the Return Department and look around. I noticed a large supply of salesmen samples returned with several women there working to refurbish them. . On investigating why they were being returned, I found that we gave them one third off of our wholesale price. I stated to my boss that it would save a lot of manpower if we gave the 50% off and had them keep the samples. I don't have any idea how much money was saved but it sure impressed the ladies doing the work and I was thanked for the suggestion. In that same vein, the returns were also burdened with a large supply of briefs, most of a specific style. I looked at the briefs and found that the major reason was the rubber band encased in a ribbed knit around the legs, had hardened due to hot water in the wash. This caused the hardened rubber to cut through the ribbing. They had also yellowed because of the affect of the bleach that was used. Because we sold a tremendous quantity of that style, I went to Research and Development and talked to a fellow named Reink. He was one of our resident experts on the knitting of our materials and told him about the problems I had found. Did he have any ideas on how we could eliminate the rubber band and improve the yellowing factor? He said he would get back to me and a couple of weeks later he came to my office and showed me a sample brief which now incorporated a white cotton yarn with certain quantities of Nylon and Lycra. To shorten the story I asked that he make up a few dozen so that they could be sampled and soon after distributed them to various people in the office and waited for their results. They were a smash and it gave us a big step up over our competitors. Our returns became negligible, our salesmens were very pleased to have the samples to sell at their own sample sales. Everybody was happy--the ladies in the Return Department, the salesman, the Advertising Department had a new development to shout about and of course the management began seeing an improvement in the work hours and in profits. Well, as I started out to say, my memory reminds me that, while in my new job, which had nothing to do with the Return Department, came a great learning experience and some praise, although no money, from my boss. It's one of the nice things about age, you can reflect on some successes, no matter how minor they may seem, and smile.