Historically Fit

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Nikolai Karpushin came to Los Angeles a dozen years ago to help a Russian linen company build a future in the United States. As it turns out, the fastest growing market for the business he’s built is the past.

Karpushin’s company, Fabrics-Store.com, has carved out a niche selling linen online to participants in Civil War re-enactments and Renaissance festivals or show biz professionals who need to re-create the authentic feel of former times.

“These people want to make their events and re-enactments as historically accurate as possible, so they have to use linen,” Karpushin said.

About one-third of Karpushin’s $1 million online linen business now comes from period costume creators. Much of that growth has come in the last five or six years.

Karpushin, 53, also owns a separate wholesale linen fabric business that generates between $5 million and $10 million annually from major retail customers, including Williams-Sonoma Inc., and Crate & Barrel Inc., selling tablecloths, placemats, napkins and other accessories.

While the wholesale side of his business has felt the effect of the recession, the online linen business is growing. That’s in part because its prices are highly competitive.

“I can get this for half the cost of retail,” said Kass McGann, owner of Reconstructing History, an Easton, Pa., historical costume business and a longtime customer of Fabrics-Store.com. “It costs $6 per yard, rather than $12 to $15 elsewhere.”

Also, the number of events is growing, driving up demand.

Linen, derived from fibers from the flax plant, was widely used historically as a durable yet highly absorbent fabric for clothing, towels and bedding. Wool was used for coats and sweaters; linen was used for lighter garments, but its prevalence waned when cheaper cotton fabric spread throughout Europe and America in the late 18th century. The use of linen shrank even more after World War II with the advent of artificial fibers.

Now, linen fabric is rarely used in clothing, but can still be found in stores for tablecloths, towels and sheets. The increasing demand for historical costumes is helping keep it alive.

Over the past decade, the number of Renaissance fairs in the United States has grown roughly 20 percent, according to Janet Fable, advertising director of Renaissance Magazine, based in Shelton, Conn.

“During difficult times, people like to escape from reality and this is a way to escape that doesn’t cost too much,” Fable said.

Linen is used even more widely for period costumes in the United States because many of the festivals are held during hot summer months.

“Linen is very good at keeping people cool, which is why it’s the main historically accurate substitute for wool,” McGann said.

She said Fabrics-Store’s colors and fabric weights are consistent over time, so that costumes can be repaired or replaced easily. She’s used linen from Fabrics-Store for a Real Pirates exhibit by the National Geographic Society and for some shirts for a recent Broadway production of “Cyrano de Bergerac.”


Russian roots

In his native Soviet Union, Karpushin was a building engineer, but launched a Moscow television production company in the 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev announced his reform program.

“The day after Gorbachev signed an edict permitting private businesses to operate, I started my business,” he said.

Karpushin’s company, which produced beauty pageants, awards shows and other variety programming, was one of the first to generate revenue through private advertising. Karpushin’s wife, Zina, landed one of Moscow’s biggest textile mills as an advertiser for the programs. This mill also happened to be one of the largest producers of linen in the former Soviet Union.

But doing business in Russia became more and more difficult during the 1990s due to the tumultuous reign of Boris Yeltsin, bureaucratic corruption and organized crime. By 1997, the Karpushins closed their television production business in Moscow and moved to the United States, which they figured would be a major new market for the Moscow linen mill. At that time, there was very little linen production in the United States. So the Karpushins came here and tried to round up retail customers for Russian-made linen.

They chose Los Angeles because Nikolai Karpushin had always dreamed of living here.

“It’s Hollywood,” he said, “the place where dreams are made.”

But it was also the height of the dot-com craze. So he set up Fabrics-Store.com to take orders online and ship directly to customers. The online business launched in late 1998 and slowly took hold.

It wasn’t until about 2006 that Karpushin realized that many of the online buyers were historical re-enactment enthusiasts.

“We did an online survey and I was stunned to find out who was actually buying our linen fabric,” he said. “Once we found this out, we started marketing to them in trade publications and at various events.”

He eventually wants to advertise on social networking sites where historical re-enactment enthusiasts keep in contact with each other.

But first, he must make sure his business can ride out the recession.

“We’re hearing that vendors at Renaissance fairs aren’t doing as well as they used to,” said Renaissance Magazine’s Fable. “People may be going to these fairs, but they are not buying as much.”

McGann’s Reconstructing History costume company is getting smaller orders, even though the number of them remains high. In other words, people are still buying, but they’re spending less.

Karpushin is undaunted.

“There’s a reason linen fabric has survived for thousands of years,” he said. “It may be expensive to produce, but it has properties that no other fabric can match and there will always be some demand.”



Fabrics-Store.com

Founded: 1998

Core Business: Selling linen online, particularly to historical re-enactment

enthusiasts and professionals

Employees: 9 (in 2008 and 2009)

Goal: To expand presence online

The numbers: About $1 million in online revenues; one-third of that total from historical re-enactment enthusiasts and professionals

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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