By Ed Avis
Gregory Todd
When Gregory Todd was a young man, some 40 years ago, you could find a garment factory “on every corner” in Lake City, South Carolina, he says. Today his factory, GMACK Designs, is the only one left in a hundred-mile radius, except for one nearby that makes women’s panties.
But don’t worry, this isn’t some sob story about the decline of American manufacturing and all that. Well, maybe there’s some of that in this story. But that’s not the whole story.
A Happy Part of This Story
The better part of the story is that GMACK Designs still employs 13 or 14 sewers, all of whom have multiple decades of experience behind the sewing machine. And the line of garments they make – including the Sofi’s Stitches line of Renaissance wear (see the images above) – is the highest quality clothing of its type this side of Florence, Italy. Michelangelo probably would have been comfortable in it.
“We buy the best fabrics and everything that we can,” Todd explains. “I’ve had people say that they’ve had our garments for 20 years.”
An employee, Dora, works on a garment in the GMACK Designs factory.
But that’s not all the factory makes. Do you remember the TV show Glee? Todd’s company made costumes for that program. Earlier they sewed clothing for Tommy Hilfiger and Oxford Industries. And if you’ve ever purchased a Santa outfit from Planet Santa, well, Gregory’s sewers made that, too.
Some costume manufacturers lean on GMACK Designs when they run low on inventory and can’t wait for the next container to arrive from China. And he’s got the capacity to take on more of that kind of work, which is probably a good thing given the tariff situation.
“If other companies needed some help because they ordered from China and did not get quite enough, we don’t mind helping them out,” Todd says, adding that he could add more staff if needed.
A Sad Part of This Story
Speaking of China, though, here comes a sad part of this story: Todd’s father started the company, then called Lake City Manufacturing, in the 1970s, and by the 1990s the company had three plants and more than 200 sewers…so today’s GMACK Designs is just a fraction of what Lake City Manufacturing was in its heyday.
“You know, they signed the NAFTA bill in 1994, and by around 2000 we could not find any work, because all of it went to Mexico and China,” Todd says in his distinctive South Carolina accent.
Debbie is another hard-working GMACK employee
Fortunately, around that time Sofi’s Stitches came into the picture. The then-owner of that company, Valerie Lilley, contracted with GMACK to produce her line of Renaissance clothing. About eight years later Todd bought Sofi’s Stitches, giving GMACK a built-in customer. Today they continue to wholesale and retail those products.
Todd designs new garments for Sofi’s Stitches himself. He gets ideas from watching movies, then makes the patterns and tries out various trims, buttons and other details.
“When we make new designs, we send them out to Renaissance fairs,” he says. “That’s how we do our trials to see how people take to the new garments.”
Another Good Part of This Story
Here’s another good part of this story: GMACK Designs has plenty of Sofi’s Stiches inventory, so if you need more product to put on your shelves for Halloween, click here to check out their line. Todd says they ship most orders out the same day they receive them.
Another employee named Debbie
And if you’re a manufacturer or wholesaler and you’re running low on something, remember, Todd can help you, too. Though of course it won’t ship out the same day.
“If it’s an order for a hundred different color shirts or something, I have them cut, put in the sewing line, inspected, bagged and everything, and then we ship them out. Sometimes it takes us a week to do that.”
Another Sad Part of This Story
OK, so now it’s time for another sad part. Todd is not a young man anymore, and he has no obvious successor. His only living family member is his son, who is a career Marine, and his employees are near or past retirement age (“You know, the older generation, they come in to work because they don’t want to sit at home,” Todd says.)
He would love to train somebody, especially the sewing part, because he knows it so well. Back in the day when a new hire came in who knew how to sew something better than he did – such as a more efficient way to set a zipper in a garment – he would observe and learn.
“And then I could train the other people, because I was over the stitching floors,” he explains. “My mother was over the cutting department. My sister was over the finishing department. And my dad ran the business and he talked to all the customers. So I had the opportunity to learn from the best.”
Todd does not want that knowledge lost when he finally retires. He wants to train someone the correct way to sew, how to make garments that they would be proud of.
Maybe that’s how this story ends, on another happy part, when someone – you? – calls Gregory Todd and says, “Teach me how to sew.”