Hoffman California Fabrics International has been evolving for 90 years, a trend-driven mission that sometimes means bridging generations.
The Mission Viejo-based textile designer gets the bulk of its sales from quilters who took up the hobby during the home-craft heyday of the late 1970s and early ’80s. Its hopes for keeping pace now lie with the Pinterest and etsy crowd, mostly younger, digitally savvy customers the company hopes to win over with contemporary designs developed under its “Me+You” division it launched in May.
“The average age in quilting is 60s and 70s, and the next generation isn’t getting involved,” said Robin Hoffman-Haack, chief financial officer and granddaughter of the company’s founder, Rube Hoffman. “But it’s nice to see now kids are starting to do more ‘do-it-yourself’ projects.”
The Business Journal recognized Hoffman Fabrics for its longevity at the 16th annual Family Owned Business Awards luncheon on July 29 (see related stories, pages 4, 5, 6 and 7).
Rube Hoffman, who started working in New York City’s Garment District as a teenager in 1907, moved to Los Angeles and founded Hoffman Woolens and Hoffman Fabrics in 1924. The company initially sold wool flannels to department stores and clothing manufacturers. Rube changed the company’s name a couple of years later and expanded into designing prints and importing fabrics.
Surf Heritage
His sons Philip and Walter Hoffman—both Surfing Walk of Fame inductees and among the first to surf the North Shore of Oahu—took over the family business in the late 1950s. They focused on supplying Hawaiian prints to many of the early surf labels, including Orange County-born Ocean Pacific, Quiksilver Inc., Billabong and O’Neill. The company still sells some of those labels and other big names based here, such as Vans Inc., Volcom Inc. and Stussy Inc.
One of the company’s designs—purple parrots and teal palm fronds on a red background—was used for a shirt Tom Selleck wore in the television series “Magnum, P.I.” and is exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Hoffman Fabrics ventured into garment production in 2000 after noticing a need in the marketplace.
“We were selling just the fabric to the clothing manufacturers for years and years, and more and more they wanted to buy total finished product from one source,” said Tony Hoffman, the company’s president and Walter’s son. “We then went out and found sewing contractors and developed patterns and made the finished garments for the customers so they can do one-stop shopping.”
It produces boardshorts, Hawaiian shirts, and men’s shirts and shorts for J.Crew Group Inc., Active Ride Shop, Lands’ End and Stussy, among others.
Apparel represents about 20% of the private company’s business, with the rest coming from textile sales.
It does not disclose its revenue but “expects to close this year up in the 10% range,” Tony Hoffman said.
Each year Hoffman Fabrics’ designers create nearly 800 new patterns that are produced at contract facilities in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, China and Pakistan. Some of its vendors are in the process of switching from screen-printing to digital, which preserves fine details and intricate shading in the line art and offers a wider range of colors.
Digital printing also prevents “dye run off, which is very toxic” and allows Hoffman Fabris to “do small runs,” Hoffman-Haack said. “It’s like a printer you connect to your computer, but it runs on a continuous yardage, thousands and thousands of yards.”
The company owns a factory in Bali, Indonesia, where it produces hand-dyed Bali batiks—artisan textiles that are popular with the quilting crowd. The facility employs about 65 and has a water reclamation plant that clears the rinse water of exhausted dyes and returns it to neutral PH before releasing it back into the environment.
Hoffman Fabrics sells to wholesale distributors in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan.
Its main clients are more than 4,000 independent quilt and fabric stores across America. Its competitors include RJR Fabrics in Torrance; Los Angeles-based Robert Kaufman Fabrics; Alexander Henry Fabrics in Burbank; New York-based Andover Fabrics; and Cranston Village in Massachusetts.
Philip passed away in 2010. His son Marty is the company’s vice president and runs its operations in Bali.
Chairman
Walter, 84, is still actively involved in day-to-day operations and serves as the company’s chairman.
A fourth generation also works at the company, which has about 55 employees at its Mission Viejo headquarters. Robin’s daughter, Hailey Hoffman, 22, is the marketing manager, and her cousin, Ryan Hoffman, 36, is director of information technologies. His brother Aaron Hoffman, 33, is in charge of the company’s Me+You division.
“It’s pretty special,” Tony Hoffman said of their involvement. “It’s certainly something that you look back on, and it’s a shining star as far as I’m concerned, in … reference to my grandfather who started such a terrific company.”
Another bright spot is Hoffman Fabrics’ long-term employees, about 15 of them, who have been with the company more than 30 years.
“It’s become a much larger family; the whole business has,” he said. “How many people stay at a business for 30 years unless they are family? I’m more proud of that than anything else.”
