Peter Sanburn With Contracts At Chic Outlets Around The Country, Tie-Maker Has Pattern For Success

For the only American company that makes nothing but cotton neckties, silk is a four-letter word.

“A silk power tie feels like a stick holding up your back,” said a cotton-clad Peter Sanburn. Sporting faded jeans and a yellow cotton tie with baby blue polka dots, Sanburn began twisting and scratching his neck at the mere thought of a traditional power tie.

“I’m providing an increasingly popular alternative,” said the Spokane resident, who three years ago launched a mailorder tie company. Henry Co.’s Spring 1995 catalog is stuffed with crisply colored, $20 cotton ties with names like “Bongo” and “Fish.”

Sanburn launched Henry Co., named after Sanburn’s third child - in 1992. Although he envisioned the company as a wholesaler to specialty shops and department stores, in the past year it’s turned into a predominately mail-order company.

The company, based at 202 E. Trent, sells about 1,000 ties per month, mostly to men on the East Coast and in California. The company won the Entrepreneurial Spirit award for young businesses two weeks ago at Spokane’s Agora Awards for Small Business Excellence.

Sanburn hopes to carve out a niche with cotton tie converts, who comprise about 5 percent of the $1.4 billion in annual neckware sales. Cotton’s market share is likely to explode with the growing number of offices participating in dress-down days and the increasing popularity of cotton, Sanburn said.

Although he lauded cotton’s “comfortable attitude,” Sanburn emphasized that men who wear his ties only with casual accoutrements such as khakis or denim shirts are simply out of touch with ‘90s fashion.

“It used to be that the consumer was spoonfed that he had to wear silk. Now no one has to spend $80 to get a progressive, fashion-forward look,” said Sanburn, who wears cotton ties to everything from dinner dates to funerals to corporate events.

Ten years ago, virtually all cotton ties were prints of Hawaiian flowers or made of summery Indian madras fabric. But today’s upscale cotton ties can accompany a rugged work shirt as stylishly as a $100 pinstripe oxford - and they’re fully washable, Sanburn added.

Sanburn - formerly a harried equities trader in Seattle - has been making cotton ties since 1983, when he started perusing sewing shops to buy fabric for ties he couldn’t find in stores. His home-sewn neckware caught on, and pretty soon Sanburn’s friends were imploring him to sell the very tie off his neck.

After moving to Spokane in 1989 and working for a stint as an equities trader, he decided to drop out of the market to make ties full time.

“I left the rat race because when my grandkids are sitting on my knee, I didn’t want to say I was a trader who looked at a terminal and watched stock prices all day,” he said as he kicked off one of his well worn Birkenstock sandals.

“I want to be able to say I started a tie company. I think that would be great.”

As his repertoire of ties grew, Sanburn acquired contracts with hip, New York clothiers and major retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Dayton Hudson and Carson Pririe Scott.

Then in 1994 the retail market constricted, and the demand for neckties in department stores shrunk to less than one-third of what it was in 1993, Sanburn said. In 1994 he decided to take his ties directly to consumers via catalog.

To find the most likely buyers of high-quality, cotton ties, Sanburn rented the catalog lists of three trendy merchandisers who cater to a decidedly yuppified clientele: Pottery Barn, J. Crew and Smith & Hawkins. From those lists, Sanburn sent Henry Company’s catalog to 25,000 people around the country.

As he zeroed in on his customers’ demographics, Sanburn redefined his target group. While talking with customers, he found that most clients are 40 years old or more - a fact that tied the tie maker in knots.

“Originally I was trying for the 25- to 40-year-old age group, but the 25-year-old guy is still trying to make it in the business world and he needs to impress people. He still wears expensive, traditional silk,” Sanburn said waving his hand through unruly red hair.

“But the over-40 guy is set. He’s already done his thing and he doesn’t need to impress people, so he wears what’s most comfortable, even a little different.”

Sanburn offers a guarantee to anyone who wears a Henry Company tie: The wearer will receive unsolicited compliments or his money back.

“It’s almost to the point that I don’t want to wear my ties to a party,” Sanburn said. “They always become the focus of everyone’s attention.”