Newspaper Article

Sewing Up Business

Lina DeMasi's success is cut from the same cloth as immigrant entrepreneurs of old

It's a classic tale of American bootstrapping success. And an increasingly rare one these days.

Lina DeMasi got her start in the garment industry 20 years ago as a machine operator. She had emigrated to American from Jogiosaj-Jonica in southern Italy with her husband and three young children. She didn't speak English (even today her accent gives her away), and she couldn't work full-time because of her family.

She finally found work at Elita Dresses, a subcontractor long out of business. DeMasi had little formal education; she “learned everything in this country.” Mainly, she learned by doing. She started out as a machine operator but before long was promoted to floor manager, “dividing work, pushing production and doing quality control,” DeMasi recalls.

Over the years she was forced to bounce from subcontractor to subcontractor, working night shifts and other demanding schedules because bosses wouldn't permit her to work flexible hours to meet her family's needs. She dreamed of starting her own business to help others who were in here same position.

Certainly, she would be able to empathize with hard-working, low-wage employees. “Bosses don't understand,” DeMasi says. “They don't care about your kids, your family. I understand. I went through that road. I feel sorry when these people ask for work. I say, 'Come when you can.' It puts a little money in their pocket.”

DeMasi started Lina Fashions in 1991 with four sewing machines and four employees. Four years later, her 7,000-square-foot Pratt Street plant houses 45 machines and 50 workers. The company is a subcontractor that assembles complete garmets, labels and all. Lina works for one company, the Massachusetts-based KGR, which distributes the clothes to familiar retailers like Talbots and Lord & Taylor.

DeMasi got her business off the ground and eventually landed KGR the old-fashioned way: knocking on doors, calling designers and manufacturers, asking them to give her chance to make some clothing samples. She started out with business from Christian Dior and Jones of New York, but she needed work year round. KGR keeps her busy, and so she works only for them now. DeMasi explains that she has “a good reputation. People know my work. I do quality work, and I deliver my work on time so that they can get their product to the stores to sell.”

DeMasi says she can find enough workers who sew, although “it's getting harder.” Meriden has many Spanish-speaking immigrants now walking in DeMasi's former shoes. They come from Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Guatemala. Few of them speak English: DeMasi learned Spanish over the past 18 years, and says she now speaks Spanish more than she speaks Italian.

DeMasi attributes her firm's growth to plowing profits back into the business, mainly buying machines and attachments. Lina's revenues have grown more than 20 percent in the last year, and she expects to gross about $500,000 in 1995. Although there are “a lot, a lot of subcontractors in Connecticut,” she says her secret is a simple one: delivering a quality product on time.

That, and plain old hard work. And even though business is robust, DeMasi isn't exactly kicking back. “We work. We come home. People say, 'What are you doing?' We have one car. Nothing fancy. My husband does the bookkeeping. We are very careful. There's not much left after we pay workers, workers comp, rent, employment taxes and other expenses. It's not profit.”