‘People love him’
Edward Schachter, the man behind the Richards brand, is turning 100
GREENWICH — In 1956, a striving young immigrant came to Greenwich.
Within the next half century, Edward Schachter would take over the Richards clothing store and turn it into one of the best known clothing stores in the region, a destination for devotees of fashion and fine attire.
Schachter, who is turning 100 on Sept. 10, still dresses well and maintains an active life with family and friends. And as the big milestone approaches, he is taking special pride in the business he helped grow into a major shopping destination in Greenwich, he said in a recent email exchange from his home on Florida.
“It is so much a joy for Greenwich to have built such a business, very well done, very understated, just elegant shopping for people who want to be catered to,” he said.
Like the business he built up over the course of decades into a thriving enterprise, Schachter rose from fairly humble circumstances. Schachter and his Jewish family, originally from Cologne, Germany, escaped the Nazis on the eve of war. On New Year’s Eve in 1939, Eddie Schachter sailed into New York Harbor and disembarked at Ellis Island. The young teenager did not speak English at the time.
Schachter went to high school in upper Manhattan, learned English and then served in the U.S. Army in World War II, in the European theater with the military police and as a translator.
After opening Army-Navy stores in the region selling worker and camping clothing — in White Plains, N.Y., and Stamford — Schachter opted for an expansion into Greenwich in 1956, knowing next to nothing about the community other than that it appeared to a good place to run a business, he said. He bought out another clothing store for sale from Richard Schlesinger at 175 Greenwich Ave., across the street from St. Mary’s Church on Greenwich Avenue. It began
as “a very inexpensive haberdashery,” he recalled. He decided to keep the “Richards” name because it was “well established,” he said.
Always looking for new ways to sell merchandise and take a chance, Schachter took Levi jeans and dyed them bright colors, which proved to be a hit with Greenwich youth.
“Sold a ton of them,” said his daughter, Susan Fleisher, who worked in the family business.
Schachter eventually moved to the bottom of Greenwich Avenue, Fleisher said, when it was considered a less desirable retail section and a bit scruffy. It was the 1970s when the new Richards location opened at 350 Greenwich Ave.
“It was a bold move, at that part of the Avenue,” his daughter recalled.
Schachter, a longtime Stamford resident, sold very traditional menswear — conventional business attire for office workers — on the bottom of the Avenue for years.
The store took a new direction when Fleisher joined her father running the business. She took a more adventurous approach to fashion and style, and Richards became the first independent store in the country to sell the French fashion line Hermes in the 90s. An Hermes boutique later opened inside the store, which began to stock the shelves with merchandise from Hugo Boss, Zegna, Brioni and Ferragamo.
The store thrived and developed a loyal base of customers and a stable of longtime employees, its supporters said.
“He hired great people through years,” said Jeff Kozak, the Richards store manager, in a recent testimonial.
The Greenwich store was acquired in 1995 by the Mitchell family, which also has deep roots in retail in southern Connecticut. The clothing business later relocated 359 Greenwich Ave. Schachter continued coming to the store regularly — and was greeted by longtime employees as “the Boss.”
Fleisher says her father made an impression on all the customers he met.
“My dad is an amazing, fun, engaging, charismatic guy, people love him,” she said. “He could relate to anyone from the chairman of the board to a plumber.”
What accounts for Schachter’s longevity?
“Being positive. Enthusiasm. And a lot of luck,” said Schachter. He was also playing tennis and golf into his mid 90s, a factor he said he believes contributed to his good health in later life.
What are the plans for the 100th birthday?
“Big party,” he says, with lots of food, balloons and more than 125 invited friends and family at his Florida residence.
And in Greenwich, Sept. 10 will be proclaimed “Eddie Schachter Day” by order of First Selectman Fred Camillo in honor of the longtime business and its successful owner who helped reshape Greenwich Avenue.