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Seven Sheep Launch Multi-Million Dollar Company
BY LOU ANN GOOD
EL VERSON (Chester Co.)
To take a flock of seven sheep and
turn them into a multi-million dol
lar international business sounds
like a dream. For Eric and Jean
Flaxenburg of Elverson, it’s
“shear” reality. They now use
10,000 to 20,000 sheepskins annu
ally to fill orders for their shearling
coals and apparel worn here and
abroad.
In 1966, the couple purchased a
40-acre abandoned farm bordered
by the French Creek State Park.
They did not intend to start a busi
ness. Eric, commuted to a Phi
ladelphia university where he
taught American civilization. Jean,
a fashion designer, quit her job
when their first child was bom.
Putting her fashion flair to prac
tice, Jean designed a baby bunting
from one of their sheepskins.
■aep ,
from one of the 10,000 to 20,000 sheepskins that the com
pany uses annually to produce It’s shearling coats.
Eric Flaxenburg has watched his 40-acre abandoned duces apparel from sheepskins,
farm grow into a multi-million dollar company that pro-
Amazed, she noticed that whenev
er she lay their collicky baby in it,
he quieted.
Convinced there was a market
for her sheepskin baby buntings,
she stitched a dozen, which Eric
showed to a major New York
department store.
The store ordered 12, paid $2O a
piece, slapped a $75 price tag on
them, and did not pay the Flaxen
burgs for eight months.
Frustrated by the redtape
involved in wholesales, and per
haps, enticed by the high price tags
of retail sales, the Flaxenburgs
decided to pursue direct markets.
They printed brochures and
advertised their baby buntings and
sheeplined coats that Jean
designed.
That was in 1970. After they had
mailed the brochures, people ridi
culed the ideal of selling a high
price item through mailorder.
Then, typical mail-order cata
logues flaunted cheap, gimicky
wares.
“We were ignorant,” Eric
admits. “We did it.”
It was a good thing they did, for
the Flaxenburgs proved the busi
ness community wrong. Not only
did the Flaxenburgs sell mail
order, they were forerunners in a
whole new era of upscale
catalogues.
As Eric fingers the fleece of a
Corriedale that will become part of
a $2,000 coat made by his com
pany, he insists, “We were very
lucky. He pauses, then adds, “It’s
better to be lucky than smart.”
He shuns comments that infer
that marketing skills and brilliance
caused the business to flourish.
' “We were simply there at the
right place, at the right time. Postal
rates were cheap. Shearlings were*
fashionable. In fashion, success is
10 percent hard work and 90 per
cent luck,” Eric insists.
But luck did not eliminate sleep
less nights of agonizing how they
were going to pull through finan-
' Selleck cannot resist coats
sewn by the French Creek
Company.
Ftaxenburg examines one of the coats that a sewer fronv
his company stitches from beginning to end.
dally. In fact, Eric said, “In this
business, you never feel confident.
People think we 4iave it made—
traveling to New York for trade
and fashion shows, visiting tanne
ries in Europe—but there are times
I don’t enjoy the business at all.
There is always something bad
happening even when good is
happening.”
In fashion, it’s easy to be suc
cessful and it’s easy to fail, and
these nagging doubts add to the
wmes(ead
td/StfiS
pressures of keeping control of a
ever-changing business.
As Eric sits in his office four sto
ries high in a silo-like tower
attached to the bam that has been
remodeled to house all the stages
of clothing construction, he talks
about the toughness of surviving in
the fashion and business world.
He glances out the French doors
that open onto a balcony overlook
ing a panoramic view of the rolling
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