With one foot firmly planted in Springfield and the other in Oakland, Calif., Crivelli Mack Inc. is the glue that binds two businesswomen six states apart.
For the international children’s clothing manufacturer and wholesaler, Springfieldian Gerri Mack and Oakland, Calif., resident Penny Crivelli tag team to design and sell girls’ outerwear to national high-end retailers and upscale boutiques.
On a quiet cul-de-sac in Springfield, Mack designs new lines of seasonal fashions, usually a six-month process, while company President Crivelli runs the administrative operations from its West Coast headquarters. They say the distance is only in miles, albeit nearly 2,000 of them.
“We are very collaborative on everything,” Mack says.
The co-owners met through a previous company that Mack started in 1993 out of Minneapolis, Minn., called Mack and Moore, where she dove head first into the world of children’s fashion. Crivelli came on board as a seller for key accounts such as Target Co. (NYSE: TGT).
Though Mack and Moore found success, Mack called it quits after the lead investor died and funding was pulled. She then went into business with Crivelli and her sales background.
“We already knew what we were doing,” Mack says.
Crivelli Mack Inc. was born in 2006.
The firm serves as a sort of umbrella for three brands: Mack & Co. and Magpie – known for their coats – and Gurlybird, the latest project. Gurlybird pushes the pair outside their niche market a bit with a new spring line featuring shoes and dresses available for order in December.
“We fit nicely into this niche market,” Mack says, with the company producing apparel for newborns to 12-year-olds.
“Magpie is more of the high-end products we produce,” she adds, noting the quality of materials is different than for Mack and Co., which uses fleece and microfiber in its jackets as opposed to found objects and special fabrics such as ribbons and faux mink used in Magpie designs.
On its client roster are big-name retailers Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Barneys New York, and the brands also are sold at Jellybeans, a southeast Springfield children’s boutique.
“I find her clothing so refreshing season after season,” Jellybeans owner Meghan Chambers says. “We really look to her for our outerwear needs, because of the time and intricate detail you can see in her designs.”
While the store carries both lines, Chambers says Mack & Co. is more popular, likely because its affordable pricing appeals to a broader market. Magpie really pushes the note on trends, she says.
At
MackAndCo.com, coats are listed in the $40 to $120 range.
With the design element taken care of in the Ozarks, Crivelli says the staff at headquarters does everything else to keep the business running, including checking on product shipments, filling customer orders and filling inventory.
In Crivelli’s role, she analyzes consumer trends and demands.
“I try to get the pulse of what people are thinking and feeling,” she says from her office in Oakland, which she calls the Brooklyn of the West Coast. “You need an awareness of what the people want.”
The partners work intimately on every detail when it comes to the garments they produce, including decisions on color, quality and final product approval.
“Engineering a quality garment is incredibly detailed,” Mack says, declining to disclose sales and production volumes but noting every part of a garment must be examined before shipping.
As a former journalist and a mother of three girls, Mack is no stranger to a busy life.
“I’m always going,” she says, noting currently she makes trips to Oakland every six to eight weeks, attends trade shows in New York two to three times a year and does fabric sourcing in France and China.
“Watching Gerri be a business owner, a mother and a wife at the same time made me think about what it took for a woman to be a business owner,” says Heather Korte, a senior fashion design major at Missouri State University who interned with Mack this summer.
Though accustomed to a busy lifestyle, Mack prefers to work in a slower setting, the reason she keeps her design work in Springfield.
Mack parlays her role into project jobs for area talent. When it comes to promotional work, she engages her husband’s marketing company, Brandigm LLC, and for photo shoots with the company’s garments, Mack reaches out to Springfield Ballet Inc. to find young models.
“I like to keep my eye out for new talent in the area,” Mack says, noting Will Stone, a recent Drury University graduate, did the photography for the spring 2015 line of Gurlybird.
At one time, the vast majority of Crivelli Mack Inc. products were made in America, but now that has shifted to roughly 75 percent of manufacturing done in China. The remaining goods are produced in the San Francisco area, though Crivelli says the shift from the Bay area was due to a number of sewing mavens retiring and closing shop.
Looking ahead, Mack emphasizes the opportunity the children’s clothing market holds.
“We gain a new customer every year, because every year a new child is born,” she says.
