Brooks's New Brother

Four blocks from the White House, on the corner of 14th and F Streets, stands the nine-story building of Julius Garfinckel & Co. It is Washington's answer to the oft-repeated charge that the nation's capital is a town of dowdy women. In Gar-nnckel's show windows are strapless pink tulles by Dior, tobacco-colored satins by Path and organdies by Adrian. Last week Garfinckel's added another famed trademark to its collection: a crest with a lion rampant and a Pegasus, and the motto "Our words and deeds agree." It bought control of Manhattan's 65-year-old A. De Pinna Co., which is as much a tradition to many New Yorkers as Brooks Brothers. Garfinckel's bought Brooks Brothers four years ago.

The fashion needs of the well-heeled have been Garfinckel's chief concern ever since Founder Julius Garfinckel opened his shop on Washington's F Street in 1905. He stocked it with such things as French handbags, fine furs, lingerie and jewelry, built up such prestige that Garfinckel's soon became the most fashionable store in the capital. A vegetarian and health faddist, he kept his office desk on an open-air terrace except in coldest winter. He built his business to a gross of $3.2 million without ever running display advertisements in a newspaper or magazine.

Three years after Julius' death in 1936, new President William E. Schmid, a Garfinckel veteran who had begun his business career as a clerk in a packing house, began making changes. He launched ad campaigns, even wriggled into television with a demonstration by a model of a two-way stretch girdle. Sales have grown until last year Garfinckel's gross was $21.6 million, its net $928,135.

With the purchase of De Pinna, which grossed $5.4 million in its last fiscal year, Garfinckel's has eleven outlets in five states and the District of Columbia, and has not stopped expanding. The next stop is Chicago, where Brooks Brothers plans to display its famed Golden Fleece trademark (see cut) in a new branch next fall.