C B S Dress Co

Special HCPL exhibit recalls era of industrial dressmaking here, by Chuck Stinnett:

Veteran Cornbleet dress designers Ernestine Seitz—who got her start as a teenager running looms at the hosiery mill—and Frank Cusic, along with a third partner, founded the C.B.S. Dress Co. in a three-story former tobacco plant at Third and Water. Eventually Seitz became the sole proprietor.

Her company “had as many as 300 employees in that (former) tobacco warehouse, from the cutting floor to the sewing floor to the seaming area to shipping to administrative,” Gibson said, who grew up playing in the factory. She advertised her C.B.S. sportswear apparel in Seventeen magazine and her Marta ’D label in Mademoiselle.

Dressmaking ended here in 1979, when C.B.S. was forced to close because of fire code violations in the old building.

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Special HCPL exhibit recalls era of industrial dressmaking here, by Chuck Stinnett