Oxford Industries history

In 1943 Oxford bought its first manufacturing facility, the Champion Garment Company, in Rome, Georgia, and the company name was promptly changed to the Oxford Manufacturing Company.

In 1944 the brothers were able to buy out their partners; the "temporary" investment had taken on a life of its own.

By 1950 it had begun to lay the groundwork by opening a new 40,000-square-foot plant in Vidalia, as well as an office in New York City.

By 1959 sales had reached $29 million (47 percent of this figure from pants sales), and J.C. Penney accounted for 44 percent of Oxford’s total business.

Public Company Incorporated: 1960 as Oxford Manufacturing CompanyEmployees: 9,800Sales: $527.7 millionStock Exchanges: New YorkSICs: 2311 Men’s/Boys’ Suits and Coats; 2321 Men’s/Boys’ Shirts; 2337 Women’s/Misses’ Suits and Coats; 2339 Women’s/Misses’ Outerwear Nec

One of the men responsible for Oxford's tremendous growth in this period, President Tommy Lanier, was killed in a plane crash near Paris on June 3, 1962, in a disaster that also took the lives of many of Atlanta's civic leaders.

Ben Sherman had been formed in 1963 and was long known as a supplier of men's shirts for the "Mod" crowd.

By 1964 Oxford was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

When Oxford moved its headquarters into a new 70,000-square-foot site in Atlanta in 1965, the company had grown to include more than 7,000 employees and had topped $81.7 million in net annual sales.

One of its first moves was to lease a plant in Agua Prieta, Mexico, directly across the border from its plant in Douglass, Arizona, in 1968.

The strong performance of the business products division—which in 1970 comprised 11 percent of revenue—helped cushion the effects of the apparel divisions’ sluggish sales, which were blamed on inflation, rising unemployment, and continuing recession.

A computer-operated pattern grading and marking system was introduced in the menswear division in 1976.

On July 1, 1977, Lanier Business Products was spun off as its own publicly held company and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Perhaps Oxford's most striking success in the designer label market was its first; it sealed an agreement with Ralph Lauren in 1978 to produce a line of all-cotton boys shirts known as Polo for Boys.

Another major acquisition was the Merona Sport Division of Merona Corporation in 1981.

In 1982 (the year in which Sartain Lanier retired as chairman and his son gained the post) sales increased $100 million over the previous year.

In 1983 Oxford became a Fortune 500 company.

Profits peaked in 1984 at $25 million.

Sales began to drop in the apparel market as a whole in 1989 and Oxford responded by paring down lines and reducing inventories.

In 1992 J.C. Penney comprised 24 percent of Oxford business, and sales had risen 4.3 percent from the previous year, after three years of reduced sales.

Even so, revenues rose 9 percent to a record $625 million in fiscal 1994, with income up 30 percent to $19.2 million.

Sales for 2000 fell 3 percent from the previous year to $839.5 million, and earnings slipped 11 percent to $23.4 million.

Sales were down to $677 million in fiscal 2002.

In 2003 Oxford bought Viewpoint International, which owned Tommy Bahama, an upscale lifestyle brand that had been built around pricey casual items such as silk Hawaiian-print shirts.

The Izod Golf business, acquired five years earlier from Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, was replaced with the company's own brand, Oxford Golf, in 2004.

Oxford's revenues rose 18 percent to a record $1.3 billion in the fiscal year ended June 3, 2005.

"Oxford Sells Women's Wear to Li & Fung," just-style.com, May 2, 2006.