Wearing a tasteful black drifter sweater for founder of Lands' End

[Eve]

I love their clothes; 75% of my wardrobe comes from Lands’ End.

CHICAGO (AP) - Gary C. Comer, founder of the Lands’ End casual clothing company, died in Chicago. He was 78. Comer, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side, died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, according to a report on the Chicago Tribune’s Web site. “Gary Comer was a visionary entrepreneur, whose passion for excellence created a legendary company,” Lands’ End President David McCreight said in a statement. “American business has lost an icon.” Comer founded Lands’ End in the early 1960s and stepped down as president in 1990. He remained chairman of the board and the majority stockholder until the company was sold to Sears, Roebuck & Co. in May 2002.

Only after 10 years as an advertising copywriter did a 33-year-old Comer decide to start his own company. In 1962, he launched a mail-order sailing equipment business. He and his partners incorporated Lands’ End Yacht Stores a year later in Chicago. Comer moved the company’s warehouse and phone operations to Dodgeville, Wis., in 1978. In 1986, Lands’ End went public. Comer was known for his philanthropy. He and his wife, Frances, made several donations over the past 10 years totaling more than $84 million. The gifts led to the creation and expansion of the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital.

[Dinsdale]

Up until last week his 150’ yacht Turmoil was tied up at Burnham Harbor, where I’d see it on my lunchtime runs. If you make a good enough offer at the estate sale, they might toss in the helicopter for free!

I don’t think I ever read a bad word about GC.

[freckafree]

And to someone’s credit, I never noticed a difference after Lands’ End was bought by Sears (except being able to find Lands’ End overstocks in the mall! Yahoo!).

One wonders if Comer’s kind of entrepreneurship in a U.S-based clothing company can ever happen again.

[levdrakon]

Dang, that’s too bad. I used to order from them back when I was in the Army stationed overseas and you couldn’t get decent clothes at the PX. Good ol’ Lands’ Ends catalogue to the rescue!

Just the other day I was washing some old clothes I dragged out the back of my closet and re-washed - for like the 10 zillionth time - my old favorite black cotton Land’s End polo shirt. That thing’s easily 15 years old and still wearable. Well, if I were still as skinny as I was in my Army days and a couple moths hadn’t gotten at it. But it is still wearable!