"People are always surprised to hear we're based in Cleveland," Foroozan Alaeddini said. "But they also like that we're made in America. It's a pleasant surprise."
BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- The founders of Forma Apparel Manufacturing couldn't find anyone who could stitch together clothing to the high standards they demanded. So they started their own company.
"I kept saying, 'Why put the most valuable end product of your business in someone else's hands when you know you could do better?'" said Foroozan Alaeddini, Forma Apparel's business manager.
Amanda Cowsert said they launched Forma Apparel (the name comes from combining "Foroozan" and "Amanda") at the end of 2013, figuring that "there have to be other businesses out there that are looking for the same quality." Cowsert is the company's consultant and technical advisor.
They were right.
Forma Apparel has drawn so many clients who appreciate Minh Suster's exacting attention to detail and are willing to pay extra for the "Made in the USA" tag that it is looking to expand into a bigger space inside their Beachwood industrial complex.
"People are always surprised to hear we're based in Cleveland," said Foroozan. "They say, 'Why Cleveland?' But they also like that we're made in America. It's a pleasant surprise."
The fact that they're local has also attracted Cleveland designers who appreciate being able to visit the offices and watch their clothing being assembled on-site, said Cowsert, who also oversees Forma's marketing.
View full sizeForoozan Alaeddini, left, and Kent State graduate Amanda Cowsert, are now partners, with Minh Suster, of Forma Apparel Manufacturing in Beachwood. The three partners started working together in 2011 for Orgava, a line of European-inspired, organic and sustainable girls' clothing that sells to upscale boutiques and online at orgava.com. After Alaeddini designed the clothes and Suster sewed together the first set of samples, they sent them out to clothing manufacturers to produce larger quantities.
But they were appalled by what they got back. Not only were the outfits not well made, but the bodices for the dresses were too large and blousy for the skirts they were sewn to. And the worst part was that the imported Italian wool couldn't be taken apart and re-stitched properly, so the entire batch was ruined.
"It didn't meet our expectations," said Suster, the production manager. She oversees the technical aspects of the business: the patterns, fabrics, buttons, notions and final assembly. "Even the fit was wrong. They came back bigger, like a size 12 instead of an 8 or 10."
"Manufacturing requires a lot of technical knowledge; knowing about sizing, pattern-making, fit, and what needs to be done" to create fabric that will gather properly or lie flat when needed, she added. Not all fabrics work for all designs, and not all designs work in all materials.
Orgava was Forma's first customer, but it's no longer their largest. Their clients have included a woman who wanted 100 of the same skirt in five sizes, to people who've made a few things at home that they want to try selling more of online.
Some companies want to make lots of clothes quickly and inexpensively, and choose factories overseas because they get the job done. But Forma's owners prefer to take their time making pieces that are meant to last, with designs timeless enough to be handed down from sibling to sibling, Alaeddini said.
Suster's seamstress mother spent about 30 years working at the former Joseph & Feiss Co. garment factory in Cleveland, so the daughter knows a thing or two about making clothes. She can take an outfit and translate the measurements into different sizes that her workers can then cut out and assemble.
She's an unapologetic stickler for details: the patterns have to line up so the stripes continue across the seam, and the inside linings of coats and pockets have to pass the same scrutiny as the outside. She's known for handing an outfit back to a worker and telling her to do it again, and correctly.
Forma's four workers cut, sew, assemble, iron and label the clothing, so that it arrives at the buyer pressed and ready to sell.
"The community we're in at one point was huge in manufacturing," Suster said. "We have the people here in Cleveland, and we're always looking for more expertise. [Forma's employment] is now project-based, depending on how many clients we have. But eventually, we would love to have 15 to 20 people."
"And we train, too," she added, "because there's a certain way that we like to make clothing. It has to look good and it has to fit well."
"There's a lot of women who are very creative and who want to bring their ideas to life, and they're always looking for those businesses that will help them do that," Suster said.
"We really had a heart for bringing manufacturing back to Cleveland," Alaeddini said. "We really feel that we are providing a service that's needed and rarely offered to designers. And helping the local economy, we're very big on that."