Fall River Herald News - Rep. Kennedy, Fall River Business Owners Talk Challenges, Partnership Solutions

News Article

By Marc Munroe Dion

Jim Petrosso, owner of Fall River Apparel, a sewing shop in a mill at 1 Ace St., put it best, telling U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III that the six-employee sewing shop is not what he once had when he owned Chace Collections, a sewing shop in the Wampanoag Mill, which he also owns.

"This is what's left of what we had," Petrosso said.

Chace went bankrupt, as did Petrosso.

"We had 100 workers," Petrosso said.

"We closed in 2001 because of the China deal," Petrosso said, referencing the flight of sewing shop jobs to Asian countries.

Now, Petrosso and other Fall River manufacturers are trying to reinvent themselves in any way they can, including working for small-time retailers who sell on Etsy, an Internet marketplace where a lot of small-scale designers market wares they often make themselves. And when those small designers get bigger they look for manufacturers, some of whom, like Petrosso, are learning to get along in this new market.

"So, you're doing smaller runs," Kennedy said to Petrosso,

"And it has to be higher quality," Petrosso said.

Right now, Petrosso is making things like scaled-down versions of superhero capes for people like Allison Faunce, who made her first cape for her son.

"He was running around wearing a dish towel as a cape," she said.

She sold a few more to friends, put her product on Etsy and was soon sewing hard. Too hard.

"I stitched my finger to a cape," she said.

Faunce found Petrosso.

"We had $100,000 in sales last year," she said.

While Petrosso may not be planning to get much bigger, he said he couldn't if he wanted to.

"The labor force in Fall River is gone," he said

"What is the challenge to finding the talent?" Kennedy asked.

Petrosso admitted that sewing is tough, repetitive work, but said that he feels workers would rather receive unemployment or other benefits than seek work.

Kennedy said he saw a "skills gap" and suggested there needs to be more direct communication between educational institutions and employers as to what employers need.

Some Etsy merchants, Petrosso and Kennedy sat together at a roundtable down the hall from American Apparel at Frank Clegg Leather and listened to owner Clegg talk about his work as a maker of leather wallets, bags and similar goods.

"We're gearing up to double," said Clegg, who employs eight.

For Clegg, the Internet's been a savior.

"The Internet allows us to sell worldwide," he said.

"You have to reinvent yourself as everything changes."

Clegg said producing for smaller vendors requires communication because vendors who begin by making their products at home are often surprised at what a manufacturer will charge to produce their product.

"If someone is making their product at home, that's good," Petrosso said. "But if they're selling it for $10 and they want a manufacturer to make it, it might cost me $10 to make it and they don't want to raise their price."

Kennedy said he saw a future for Massachusetts manufacturing.

"People want what their grandfathers had," Clegg said. "They want quality."

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