WestPoint Home
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WestPoint Home, Inc., is a supplier of fashion and core home textile products. WestPoint Home is headquartered in New York City with manufacturing and distribution facilities in the United States and overseas.[1][2][3] Their products include a diverse range of home fashion textile products including: towels, fashion bedding, sheets, comforters, blankets, mattress pads, pillows and more. Some brands that they offer include: Martex, Izod, Ralph Lauren, Hanes, Stay Bright, Vellux, Patrician, Lady Pepperell, and Utica Cotton Mills. Products from Westpoint Home are found in retail stores throughout the United States.
WestPoint Home's goal of being the "preferred supplier of fashion and core home textile products"[4] is backed by almost 200 years of textile history. WestPoint Home, Inc. as it is known today is the result of the mergers of three of the oldest companies in the textile industry: J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc. (est. 1813 in Massachusetts), Pepperell Manufacturing Company (est. 1851 in Maine), and West Point Manufacturing Company (est. 1880 in Georgia).[5]
The company was led by the Lanier family through the late 1980s. The Laniers originally incorporated the Westpoint Manufacturing Company in 1880.[5] WestPoint Home, Inc. is now owned by Icahn Enterprises, L.P.[3] In June 2011 WestPoint Home named Normand Savaria President & CEO, and Taran Chernin Executive VP & Chief Merchandising Officer. WestPoint Home chairman Carl Icahn said the appointments "will further elevate the performance of WestPoint Home".[4]
Brands
- Amy Sia
- Binichic
- Collier Campbell
- Dena Home
- EcoPure
- Five Star Hotel
- Flatiron
- Grand Patrician
- Izod
- Jill Rosenwald
- Martex
- Atelier Martex
- Martex Rx
- Martex Bare Necessities
- Baby Martex
- Modern Living
- Lemon Tree
- Luxor
- Patrician
- Portico (organic cotton)
- Seduction
- Southern Tide
- Stay Bright
- True Timber
- Ultratouch
- Unter the Canopy (organic cotton)
- Utica
- Vellux
- Exclusive Brands
History
Synopsis
The American textile industry was historically a grand industry that helped to shape the landscape of the United States. Railways, roads, factories, houses, schools, stores, restaurants, towns, and cities were all built because of the textile industry. From humble beginnings, through the industrial revolution, through an era of consolidation, and corporate takeovers, dramatic changes took place within textile companies themselves as well as the cities they helped build. WestPoint Home, one of the longest operating companies provides us with a nearly 200 year timeline that parallels all the highs and lows of its industry.
The present company, WestPoint Home, is a conglomerate of three textile giants, all with rich company histories. WestPoint Manufacturing Company was formed in the south shortly after the end of the Civil War. J.P. Stevens & Co and the Pepperell Manufacturing Co were two individual companies that were founded some years earlier in New England. The near 200-year span over which these three companies combined has culminated in a company that today is known as WestPoint Home, a domestic and international manufacturer of home fashion textiles.[7]
In Popular Culture
The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union was a textile labor union that was founded in 1914. J.P. Stevens & Co had a famous run in with the union, which was documented in the film Norma Rae. The Academy Award winning movie Norma Rae was based on the real-life story of Crystal Lee Sutton. Sutton, who was a mill worker in a J.P. Stevens mill in Roanoke Rapids NC, was fired after trying to unionize employees. Shortly after Sutton's famous "stand", The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) began to represent workers at the plant on August 28, 1974.[8]
References
- ^ "WestPoint Home to Shutter Greenville, Ala., Facility, Textile World, February 8, 2011, 11/17/11
- ^ "WestPoint Stevens to Open Shanghai Office, Receives Filing Extension", Textile World, June 2004, 11/17/11
- ^ a b Brent Felgner"Why Icahn Needs Westpoint", Home Textiles Today, March 6, 2008, 11/17/11
- ^ a b Home Textiles Staff, "WestPoint Names Savaria New CEO", Home Textiles Today, June 8, 2011, 11/17/11
- ^ a b WestPoint Stevens, Inc. - Company Profile, Funding Universe, 11/17/11
- ^ "Brands - Shop". www.westpointhome.com. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
- ^ "WL Ross-Led Group Seeks to Acquire WestPoint Stevens", Textile World, April 2005, 11/20/11
- ^ Fink, Joey (July 15, 2014). "In Good Faith: Working-Class Women, Feminism, and Religious Support in the Struggle to Organize J. P. Stevens Textile Workers in the Southern Piedmont, 1974–1980". Southern Spaces. Retrieved 26 August 2014.