Larry Rubin's Specialty Clothing has dressed some of Pittsburgh's most prominent men since opening in 1973.
Rubin's promise to service the tailored garments he sells over their lifetime earned the loyalty of customers like Norman Bress, of Wilkinsburg, who said he has appreciated the free alterations he would get at Rubin's Uptown haberdashery over the years as his waistline expanded.
Rubin has been the uneasy beneficiary of the thinning of the ranks of independent men's clothiers as names such as The Coach House, The Gentry, David Israel and Hughes & Hatcher disappeared from the landscape.
But now it is his own Fifth Avenue store that will be closing this fall as many long-time customers have died or retired, and newer ones have failed to replenish their ranks. Rubin closed a second store he had operated in Bridgeville from 1976 to 1989.
Rubin blames the decline on what he believes is an increasingly lax corporate dress code, combined with the rise of mass merchants such as Men's Wearhouse.
"We didn't lose any of our customers, we just lost the frequency of their business," he said. "The age of the independent retailer is over."
Rubin, 61, of Squirrel Hill, prides himself on customer service.
"Our salespeople keep files on customers and know their wive's names," he said. "The Men's Wearhouse can't hold a candle to us for service."
Rubin said he tried to adapt to the changing times by increasing his inventory of polo shirts and khaki pants, but said there is no incentive for people to come to a destination store such as his for those types of items that can be bought off the rack almost anywhere.
Rubin said he can see the return to more formal dress, but said it's too little too late for his business, which will begin liquidating remaining inventory Sept. 15.
Former Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning said he's been buying suits from Rubin since he became a lawyer. "I'd say 80 to 85 percent of the suits in my closet came from Specialty Clothing," he said. "It was almost like getting a custom-made suit. (Rubin) is a real institution."
There is no dress-down day in court, where lawyers are expected to be in suits, but in corporate and social America the move away from formal dress has been pronounced over the past 15 years, said Eugene Fram, a marketing professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.
"What's happened to this Larry Rubin's is indicative to what's happened to the specialty men's wear business nationwide," Fram said. "Men have been wearing fewer formal suits to work. Open shirts are de riguer."
Remaining men's clothiers in the region say they are saddened to lose another from their ranks, even if it means less competition.
Joe Orlando Jr., whose father opened Joe Orlando Mens Wear on Liberty Avenue, Downtown, in 1981, said that although Specialty Clothing was a competitor, it is never good to see an independent fail.
"The biggest problem we have as independent retailers is cultivating the next generation of customers," he said. "The guys who my dad built the business on are now retiring. I'm trying to capture the young guy in his late 20s or early 30s who is starting to reap the benefits of the business world. It's a tough racket."
Orlando said the deteriorated condition of the Downtown retail core hasn't helped matters, adding that is steering his son, who is 21, away from the business, unless he has a true passion for retailing or the merchandise.
