BUSINESS TO BUSINESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joe Tatulli

Life Style Covers: Good Roots in Good Soil Produce Good Fruit

Life Style Covers is a family business, owned by Arthur and Lillian Nazginov. In a family business, as in any family, the past creates the present.

“I’ve been around sewing machines since I was about five years old,” said Arthur Nazginov. “I grew up watching my father, who managed a sewing factory in the former Soviet Union. My family and I moved to the United States looking for freedom and opportunity. We came here with fifty dollars each from the Russian government. That’s two hundred dollars to start a new life here in America,” he said.

Nazginov’s story also has a very interesting beginning as it relates to futon history, apart from his arrival as an immigrant at thirteen years of age in October of 1979. “My mother worked in a hotel as a maid back then. She knew a man who drove a shuttle bus from the hotel to the airport. His name was Irv Wieder,” said Nazginov. Irv Wieder was one of the first people to really capitalize on the futon concept with Arise, and had over ten stores in the New York City area at his company’s peak. “Weider found out our family was in the sewing business, and when he started Arise we were his cut and sew source,” he said.

(Picture below: (l to r) Joe Tatulli, and Arthur and Lillian Nazginov at Life Style HQs in Queens, NY.)
As time went by Arise outgrew their futon production capacity, and the Nazginovs lost their opportunity when Weider needed more production and began to have his futons made at a local mattress factory.

The Nazginovs decided to stay with futons and began to build a retail business of their own at 548 1/2 Hudson Street. “Our first store was smaller than five hundred square feet. Very tiny space, but back then there were only two frames. One was the combo frame (L Frame) which we bought from Paula Sonner at Charette and then we would also sell frames from William Brouwer,” he said. Nazginov’s business continued to grow and they opened several other stores in and around the New York City area.

In 1986 Arthur and Lillian got married. “Later that year we took a trip to Brazil to find a source of futon frames,” said Lillian Nazginov.

The couple opened their first store together on 484 Broadway, and then a second on the Upper West Side on West Seventy-Second street six months later.

(Picture below: (l to r) Lillian Nazginov and Dave Purdy show off LSC’s huge finished inventory.)
As time went on many other futon furniture stores opened in Manhattan and the competition for business was fierce. “Lillian and I decided to begin a new venture, manufacturing futon covers,” Arthur Nazginov said.

“We were in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Since New York City is the center of the cut and sew business, one can buy anything from thread to industrial cutting and sewing machinery, all within four city blocks. Lillian and I found a two story factory building in Queens with an unbelievable window display,” added Nazginov. The display space is unique because it is at the top level of the two story building they are in. “The window is over one-hundred and fifty feet long and is visible at eye level from an elevated freeway which travels right past the display,” he said. “Over one hundred thousand cars pass by the display every day. We actually get calls from people who are stuck in traffic asking us how much the futon couches in the window cost,” added Lillian. “This building was a sure bet, we could not go wrong. We figured it would take some time to build the wholesale futon cover business, so to keep our heads above water we went into retail. The cover business took off, and the retail is going great, despite the 8:00 am to 4:00 pm showroom hours.”

Like many other cut and sew operations there is the construction side of the business and then there is the fashion side. Arthur is the master technician at Life Style Covers and his machines make light work of some of the most time consuming aspects of the futon cover business.

“This is my zipper machine,” says Nazginov. The machine, designed by Nazginov himself, folds over a small portion of two wider pieces of cloth, and draws them both through the machine’s foot and each half of a zipper is sewn on to each side. The machine can do in an hour what it would take an experienced sewer a day to do. “This machine saves us time and money,” says Nazginov. “It is fully automatic. Once you load the zipper and a thread, it will beep when the process is done or when a damaged zipper or the end of the fabric is detected.” He adds, “It never needs a lunch break either.”

(Picture below: The Life Style Covers team photo: For the Nazginovs, and their team, business is part of life, and life is good.)
The couple’s pride and joy is another time and money saving device, a fabric cutting machine. Typically fabric is cut to size on a large table. Someone will lay out the fabric, folding it back over itself at the desired length. After each style of fabric to be cut is laid out it is measured again for accuracy and then cut with a large electric “knife”. The knife is like a circular saw without teeth. Well, at Life Style Covers they have a machine that cuts fabric at very precise lengths one piece at a time. No one has to lay out the fabric on a table, and no one has to cut the fabric with the knife. “Just program the terminal to the desired length and the number of sheets you want, and you are all done,” says Arthur.

“This machine can cut hundreds of pieces of fabric in an hour. One person can cut as much fabric in a day as it would take six people to cut with the other method, and this machine is so precise that you could never do it by hand,” he said.

We then move into the sewing room where twelve or so people are working. “Each of our sewers can make from forty to one hundred covers per day, depending on the cover style,” says Lillian. “Smile, smile,” she says as we take some pictures of the production crew.

(Picture: (l to r) Arthur and Lillian Nazginov pose for the camera next to their sheet cutter.)
There are four cutting tables in the sewing room. “These tables are for cutting custom orders. Lately, we are making a lot of different size covers, anywhere from double split full to heart shaped futon casings,” she says.

Fifty percent of the company’s business is custom and the other fifty is off-the-shelf. “We can deliver almost any order in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. We have this ability because we maintain an inventory of about 5,000 finished covers and from 200 to 5,000 yards of each pattern that we offer in our reorderable swatch program. Sixty-five percent of our business is from a reorderable swatch program and thirty-five percent is factory selects, or non-reorderable fabrics. All our covers are inspected for quality assurance and are shipped in these zippered, clear, plastic bags,” she said.

The company has two different cover programs. One is a program of reorderable patterns, which are available at different price points. “Our price points run anywhere from the promotional New Yorker Group, like Celestial Full at $16.00, to the Woodside Group, covers like Woodbridge Full at $35.00, and on to our Premium Group, covers like FE2 Full priced at $69.00.

We have them all, from poly/cotton prints to chenilles. A lot of our best sellers are already stocked with pillow shams too,” said Arthur.

Life Style’s reorderable cover swatches are displayed three ways — in a swatch book, on a wooden swatch rack, or their latest, a metal swatch rack display.

The metal swatch rack is a self-standing unit that is similar to a miniature rug display. It has fifty metal rods that display one hundred patterns. The rods are flipped like pages in a book and can be effortlessly removed from the unit for better viewing.

The second program consists of assorted covers, known as factory selects. “Here, we offer our cusotmer fabrics that were purchased as ‘off price goods’. Meaning closeouts, short runs, etc.

These fabrics are available in a wider selection of patterns since we buy them by truck loads. In this group the customer receives covers that are selected by us. If a pattern does not move, no problem - we gladly exchange it for another number.

Once a month, we send our customers fabric cut outs and they select which ones they want. There are over 500 accounts, so it is based on a first come-first serve basis,” said Lillian.

“Everything moves along a simple path from the incoming fabric rolls to the finished goods inventory, and every step along the way we check to be sure what goes out is first quality, no matter what the price,” Arthur added.

“Because of the way we grew, we have some inefficiencies, but we are working on those, and we are not as profitable as we could be, but we are not loaded with debt either. We are optimistic about the industy’s future and our place in it,” Lillian said.

We start talking about lunch and headed over to a small restaurant for some authentic Russian food. “Russians love three things,” says Lillian, “working, eating and dancing.”

“We work very hard, and party even harder,” adds Arthur. (Some of you may have seen Arthur fighting the “bull” in Phoenix.) It was too late for work, too early to dance, so we ate. Appetizers, soup, meat pies, four kinds of kabobs, beer and soft drinks... we were too full for dessert, and we took home enough leftovers for supper the next night. The Nazginovs also took us on a tour of Brighton Beach, and Little Russia where Arthur took us into the incredible International Deli (this place had to have at least one hundred different kinds of sausage), and sent us home with more food, some pirogues.

The industrious nature of the owners and workers at Life Style Covers was encouraging. With many companies it seems that business is just business. For the Nazginovs and their team, business is part of life, and life is good. We celebrate their enthusiasm, applaud their work ethic, and wish them continued success as they live and explore the American Dream.