{"id":1718,"date":"2018-05-16T15:07:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T22:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b-spoke.net\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2026-06-29T22:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:00:29","slug":"the-parable-of-the-holiday-plaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thirdactmedia.com\/b-spoke\/2018\/05\/16\/the-parable-of-the-holiday-plaid\/","title":{"rendered":"The Parable of the Holiday Plaid"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of the year, we were \"\"<\/a>commiserating with Curt, the primary supplier of our products\u2019 most critical component, about the state of business. Retailers had been particularly ruthless, and we were wondering how that felt throughout our value stream.<\/h3>\n

\u201cHonestly, I\u2019m surprised you guys didn\u2019t try to take a price increase,\u201d I told Curt. His eyes bugged out like a cartoon rabbit as he choked on his Bud Light.<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u201cI had planned to,\u201d he said in his good ol\u2019 boy drawl, \u201cwhen I came to visit in March. But before I could make my pitch, we went out for drinks.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

JR, our president, laughed and asked, \u201cWhat happened over drinks?\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

Curt pointed at me. \u201cHe told that story.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhat story is that?\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u201cYou know, the fable\u2026 the fable of the fabric!\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

My turn to laugh. \u201cYou mean <\/em>\u2018The Parable of the Holiday Plaid\u2019!\u201d<\/h3>\n

As ashen-faced as any spooked camper listening to ghost stories, Curt nodded.<\/h3>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll bite,\u201d JR said. \u201cWhat\u2019s \u2018<\/em>The Parable of the Holiday Plaid\u2019?\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

The Parable of the Holiday Plaid<\/h4>\n

Hudson Valley Mills had been one of our suppliers since the early 1950\u2019s, when JR\u2019s grandfather and \u201cPops\u201d Steinman made handshake deals. For five decades, we (JR\u2019s granddad, JR, then I) would take the train into New York\u2019s Penn Station and hop over to Hudson Valley Weaving’s Fashion District showroom to meet with Pops and later his son, Artie. No matter what swatches and samples the Steinmans showed us, we always had a nice order for our custom design, the signature \u201cHoliday Plaid\u201d.<\/p>\n

With a bright red background and a subtle line of gold thread running through the warp, our Holiday Plaid draping over banisters, adorning wreathes, or neatly tying presents made every Christmas nearly like a picture print by Currier and Ives.<\/p>\n

\"\"As a supplier, Artie was a pain in the ass \u2013 but the good kind, torn straight from the pages of Damon Runyon. Always chewing on an unlit cigar, pants pulled to his sternum, he treated every concession as if it would bankrupt his extended family and every on-time delivery as a personal favor. He was a pain, sure, but a known quantity.<\/p>\n

Our annual volume wouldn\u2019t put anyone in the Fortune<\/em> 500 \u2013 low six-figures \u2013 but it mattered, particularly in a dying industry.<\/p>\n

When Artie retired at the age of 137, our account passed to \u201cDon\u201d. We knew Don \u2013 he always sat next to Artie with the order book and a calculator \u2013 but we didn\u2019t know<\/em> Don.<\/p>\n

We prepared our order as usual, but before we even had our first face-to-face with Don, he informed us of a price increase (along with scheduling concerns). It wasn\u2019t tremendous \u2013 around ten percent \u2013 but we had already quoted our product line to retailers, so that would come straight from our margin.<\/p>\n

His made a decent case \u2013 American textiles were cratering, so component costs were increasing as capacity collapsed. Art hadn\u2019t \u201creviewed\u201d the file in years, we had been taking advantage of that, etc. But we couldn\u2019t make it work. And we told him so.<\/p>\n

Don held firm. In fact, he issued an ultimatum \u2013 \u201cSign next week or you don\u2019t go on the schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I went shopping.<\/p>\n

At a Lean conference, we had met someone who made the canvas used in automotive airbags \u2013 which turns out to be a seasonal business that ran contra to ours. So while our Taiwanese and Sri Lankan suppliers were hastily weaving samples, we sent our specs to the New England airbag fabric mill.<\/p>\n