By David Gill
In an industry as competitive as home textiles, it’s difficult to find a group of leaders who are held in as high a regard as the Kahn family—especially among the companies they competed with.
The Kahns, who founded Croscill in 1946, will be given the Distinguished Family Leadership Award by the Home Fashion Products Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology at the annual Scholarship Awards Breakfast in New York on March 10, during the New York Home Fashions Market Week. The family sold Croscill to Patriarch Partners last November.
“We have always had the utmost respect and admiration for the Kahn family,” said David Beyda, chairman of Town & Country Living. “They are people of honesty and integrity.”
For executives such as Park Smith, chairman of Park B. Smith Ltd. and a friend of Croscill’s long-time chief executive, Mike Kahn, positive feelings stretch back for many years. “I used to meet Mike all the time in the barbershop at 295 Fifth Ave.,” Smith said, “Their pride was in how they would outdo themselves at each market, and they always did outdo themselves.”
The Kahns are appreciated by executives who have not known them as long, too. Barry Leonard, who became president of Croscill after Patriarch Partners acquired the company (and who is president of Ex-Cell Home Fashions and Glenoit, two other Patriarch Partners holdings, as well), said, “I have the utmost respect for Mike, Stanley and Doug Kahn. I got to know them all over the past year. They are the epitome of what this business is all about.”
Textiles executives gave credit to the Kahns for the new directions they took in marketing, pricing and design. “They built a brand that became known for quality and fashion,” said Michael Lichtenberg, president of S. Lichtenberg and Co. “They were instrumental with innovations in in-store displays, creating Croscill fixtures, training the store people and servicing their displays.”
The designs Croscill produced throughout the years became an important part of that brand. “They spelled ‘fashion’ with capital letters,” Smith said. “They did their own thing (in design), and they remained highly focused on that.”
Those designs “raised the bar for the whole home fashions business,” Leonard said. “The price points they created were higher than volume price points, but they did great business at those price points. Those price points created a new perception of quality in the consumer’s mind.”
The consumer was always in the Kahn family’s sights. In developing products, Croscill strove to determine what consumers wanted—and then went beyond that. “Croscill always tried to exceed the consumer’s expectations,” said Jeff Hollander, chief executive officer of Hollander Home Fashions. “They created seasonal fashions that survived the seasons.”
This focus centered on more than fashion—it transcended into enhancing consumers’ lives. “Their contributions to better living for consumers are innumerable,” Smith said. “They gave people a reason to buy.”
Croscill was a family business, of course, and other family businesses appreciated what the Kahns brought to the textiles industry’s table. Referring to David Kahn, the late president of Croscill, Hollander said, “I found David to be a man of passion, but a man who was willing to share with everyone he encountered. This permeated through the entire organization. Croscill recognized that input from everyone in the company is important. They recognized the value of their employees, the value of the team. What I have seen of their company is that they did a good job of respecting their people and their ability to carry out their responsibilities.”
In drawing ideas and contributions from all of the company’s employees, the Kahns accomplished what many of the most successful family businesses have done—transform the company’s employees into extended members of the family. “Like with our company, which has many long-term employees, all of Croscill was one family,” Lichtenberg said. “That’s not seen a lot these days.”
The Kahn family’s impact on the home-textiles industry has been enormous, and has been felt in all of the industry’s critical areas: product development, pricing and marketing. “Home fashions is a small a business,” Leonard said, “and I consider them to be among the best leaders in the whole business, not just of Croscill.”
Summing up the executives’ attitude toward the Kahns, Hollander added, “They have been great for the industry.”