Mizrahi-Gardner of Los Angeles is a leader in the off price tee shirt business.  While the company has been around since 1985, they didn’t start focusing heavily on tee-shirts until 5 years ago, when they established a relationship with an apparel company with a unique state of the art creative department.

Since then, buyers have been coming to Mizrahi-Gardner for famous brand tees that are found in trendy boutiques and chains throughout the U.S.  The labels are changing constantly and they have a lot of licensed product now.  They have even added a third booth to their exhibit space at the August OFFPRICE to accommodate their growing merchandise line.

“You have to come by the booth or warehouse to see what we have,” says partner Peter Gardner.  “We’re jobbers, we’re not manufacturers, but you would be surprised by the inventory we have that’s trending now.”

The latest fashions in graphic tees at very competitive prices are what you can expect from these jobbers, who also have a reputation for being nice people that make it easy to conduct business.

“It’s really an attitudinal thing – customer first!” maintains partner Alex Mizrahi.  “We want the relationship, not just a customer for a one-time sale.  So much of our business is repeat business – reorders from existing customers.  We have personal relationships with lots of our customers.  We developed a lot of customers through OFFPRICE and between shows we sell them a lot of goods.”

The Mizrahi-Gardner success story itself is a prime example of the importance of maintaining good personal relationships – in business and in life.  As Peter and Alex would attest, you never know how far one of these good relationships can take you.

Old School

Alex Mizrahi and Peter Gardner have known each other since 7^th grade at Audoban Junior High in South Central LA.  While they weren’t the closest of friends, they were classmates all the way through to graduation from Dorsey High in 1958.

“My buddies and I had a poker game,” said Peter. “Alex would always come over and clean us out!  He was a very good poker player.”

They would see each other periodically over the years at class reunions, but a meeting in 1985 would seal their fate as closer friends and business partners.

“I had just sold my family’s retail business,” said Peter, “and Alex recommended that I try jobbing with him.  He’d been doing it successfully for more than 15 years, and I liked it right away.  We started our own company with a handshake agreement and never raised our voices at each other in 25 years.”

One could argue that what makes the Mizrahi-Gardner partnership so successful are their complementing experiences in apparel merchandising.  Peter worked in retail, Alex spent most of his career in jobbing and swap meets.  While they were involved in different sectors of the trade, they both were successful as manufacturers in their own rite.  There’s another bond they share that might also explain their progressive business relationship.  They are both the sons of immigrants who came all the way to California from Europe to live the American dream.

Peter Gardner’s father came from Russia, while his mother was born the youngest of 12 children in England.  Due to family hardships, she was raised in an orphanage until the age of 18, when her older siblings brought her to America.  They came to San Francisco, where she met Peter’s father.

“My father worked for a retail chain called Grayson’s. He opened stores for them out west and met my mother in San Francisco.”

Peter’s dad worked for various Grayson stores until he settled in Long Beach in the 1940.  It was there that he started his own retail concept called Modern Women that specialized in plus sizes.  The Gardners lived in Long Beach for 10 years before moving north to LA in 1950.  Their Modern Women store moved with them, multiplying to 15 locations by the time Peter sold it in 1985.

Peter would work with the family business for 25 years.  During that time, Peter utilized his knowledge of the plus niche to start a manufacturing business.  It was a part-time venture with his wife in which they made plus-size sportswear for women.  They worked nights and weekends together.

“In those days, plus-size sportswear was just printed tops and basic button blouses that were also printed – short-sleeve in summer, long-sleeve in fall.   We also had a basic pull on polyester pant that changed colors throughout the seasons.”

Though they were generating half a million dollars in annual revenues, it became too overwhelming.  Thus Peter decided to focus on retail because of the investment they had made in Modern Women, and the fact that it was a family business.  That strong sense of family obligation is shared by another member of Dorsey High’s Class of ’58, and when they were reunited in ’85, it would be the start of a family-like partnership in jobbing.

Alex Mizrahi’s parents were Sephardic Jews who were from the Greek Isles.  His mother was born on the island of Kos, and his father was from the island of Rhodes (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world).  Both families had been in Greece or Turkey for several generations.

His parents would eventually meet in New York City.  They married there and gave birth to Alex’s 2 older brothers while living in the Big Apple. The family then moved to LA where Alex was born in 1940.    His father was a shoe repairman who put all 4 of his children, including Alex’s sister, through college.  And like Alex, they all became successful professionals – an attorney, a physician, and a businesswoman.

After growing up in south central LA, he would earn a degree in Business Administration from UCLA.  Alex also earned the rank of 2^nd Lieutenant in the US Army while in college.

“Military service was mandatory then,” said Alex.  “And so, it was required for all UCLA men to take 2 years of ROTC.  My older brothers were there and they advised me to take 2 more years so that I could become an officer when I graduate.  I graduated in the Summer of ’62, and in Oct of the same year, I entered the Army as 2^nd Lieutenant.  I was very fortunate to be stationed in Heidelberg, Germany in that I could travel extensively.  I took advantage of an Army program in which you could be discharged in Europe for up to 1 year.  I bummed around Europe for a year before I had them fly me home.”

Alex came back to New York that year with a Volkswagen Variant he bought with proceeds from a poker game involving senior officers.  “These squareback stations weren’t available in the US at the time, so I had it shipped over from Europe.”  He drove it across the country and returned to California.  He took his time looking for work before landing a job with May Department Store.  “I was in their real estate division working as an assistant manager of a shopping center. We coordinated sales promotional events and maintained the common areas and operations, including the janitorial and security crews.  I worked closely with the business owners’ association to create the promos,   and I became familiar with the leases the store owners had to sign, including the staggering amounts they had to spend on fixtures before putting in any clothes.”

Around the same time, a friend invited Alex to a swap meet.

“I couldn’t believe the difference between the cost of doing business between the two venues.  The swaps were the American Dream come true.  I got a space at the swap meet for a start-up cost of a few hundred dollars and eventually quit my job.”

He started selling cosmetics and products for the home.  When approached by a friend to sell apparel, Alex initially refused.  “This guy’s dad ran a men’s clothing store that was converting to suits and formal wear, and encouraged me to buy out the existing inventory.  My friend’s father told me what prices to offer for the stock (since I had no clue what I was doing I would not raise my offer) because the store owner was going to try to get more.  I was told after the purchase that I was a good negotiator!  The truth was I was too scared to raise the offer!  That next weekend with the new clothes was my best weekend ever.  So from that time on, I focused on clothing.”

While at the swaps, Alex was buying closeouts from Ditto and Chemen de-fair jeans for teenage girls, and then closed out Hash jeans from Canada.  I continued doing the swaps for about 12 years, working alongside the Hyman family of Susie’s Deals and the D’Angelo Brothers.  His next move would be getting directly into jobbing to the retail trade.

In the early days of his B2B jobbing (c. 1981), Alex was buying from Hang Ten jeans.  One of their partners, Mike Money liked the work Alex was doing and invited him to open a jean manufacturing company together.

“Mike was doing all the work for Hang Ten. He had to split the profits and pay the royalty fees.  So we started Alexander Money Inc with the goal of doing $2 million in year 1, 4 million in year 2, and so on.

Alexander Money started by getting licenses for Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. They landed 1 customer – K-Mart. In their first year, they generated $4 million in sales, followed by $10 million in year 2. In their third year, Mike wanted to make it to 20 and Alex wanted to cut back.  “We were growing too fast.  From that point on, we couldn’t agree on direction and parted ways.”

That’s when Alex went back to jobbing and ran into Peter.  “He was in process of selling the family business, and was too young to retire,” explains Alex.  “We literally started the biz on a handshake.”

25 Years Later

While both Alex and Peter are at retirement age, business is just too good for them to slow down.

“We started as traditional jobbers – opportunistic buyers – and we’ve dealt in every category of apparel for over 25 years,” recalls Peter.  “We’ve had to reinvent ourselves several times since 1985.  We’re not going anywhere as long as our graphic tees continue to do well.”

“We have great people who have been with us for a long time,” Alex says gratefully.  “Being in business is really fun.  We really enjoy it.  It shows up in how we treat people.”

Office Manager Sandy Lee is a prime example of the friendly culture at Mizrahi-Gardner.  Though she has only been with the company for a couple years, she is highly regarded by customers as a true reflection of Alex and Peter’s values and kind disposition.  “One of our buyers thought she was my sister,”

While Peter and Alex are not kids anymore, they get a lot of youthful support and consultation from Alex’s son David, a graduate of the University of Oregon, who has his own jobbing business in San Diego called Dave Miz Inc.

According to Alex, “David started doing the business his way.  A few years ago, he joined us at OFFPRICE and he started showing his stuff.  He’s very helpful to us.  David is on top of the names that are hot today and brings new fresh energy to our business.  I’m hoping that someday he’ll take it over, but that will be his choice.  I told him to go into it only if it works for him, and so far it has.”

The rest of Alex’s family includes his wife Eleanor, and 3 other children:  Elizabeth, who is a professor of history at the Santa Barbara City College; Nicole, who is a Doctor of Psychology; and Eric, who is a computer wiz with Wachovia.

Peter has 1 son, Douglas, a sports psychologist, and has been married to wife Barbara for close to 50 years.

Get to know Mizrahi-Gardner better by visiting their expanded booth (#1908) at the OFFPRICE Show.