‘Gatsby’ tailor threading a Brooks suit
It’s a suit about the suits of Martin Greenfield Clothiers and how Brooks Brothers unraveled the deal.
On Monday, the tailor to the Oval Office, who dresses Michael Bloomberg, Ray Kelly, President-elect Donald Trump, Presidents Obama and Clinton and other powerbrokers, sued Brooks Brothers for breach of contract.
The complaint — filed in Manhattan Federal court nearly two years from the date that Brooks Brothers told Greenfield that it would be making its own suits — is seeking at least $2 million in lost income.
Greenfield, 88, who also designed the men’s suits for the 2013 film “The Great Gatsby” (pictured), owns a four-story factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and had made Brooks Brothers’ Golden Fleece line of ready-to-wear and custom-made suits for more than 20 years. Clients paid as much as $3,000 for the suits, while Brooks Brothers boasted about working with a tailor who dresses US presidents, according to the complaint.
Their cozy relationship began to unravel in 2008, when Brooks Brothers bought a factory in Massachusetts for the purpose of replacing Greenfield’s services. The two would work together another six years with the understanding that Brooks Brothers would give Greenfield one-year’s notice before severing ties, the complaint alleges.
The old-world tailor, a Holocaust survivor, claims that the two had a verbal agreement about the one-year’s notice. Instead, the retailer surreptitiously phased out the tailor, “diverting orders” to its Massachusetts factory without telling Greenfield, the complaint alleges. A spokesman for Brooks Brothers declined to comment.
Greenfield’s sons, Jay and Tod, who run the company now — their father still works six days a week — had plenty to say.
“My father invested a huge part of his life building Brooks Brothers’ business,” Jay said, adding that “they wanted to put us out of business and I want to make them responsible for what they’ve done.”
Brooks Brothers accounted for about 30 percent of Greenfield’s sales and the company had to lay off dozens of union workers. What’s more, Brooks Brothers “was passing off its inferior suit as the superior Greenfield,” according to the complaint.