US leather retailer down to one store
Following the closure of its stores in
In the company’s heyday in the 1960s and ‘70s, North Beach fashions had a string of celebrity admirers as Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Sammy Davis Jr. all took to wearing its latest styles, all of them designed by the brand’s high profile owner, Michael Hoban. Some of Hoban's designs appeared in collections at the Fashion Institute of Technology's
However, an unsuccessful expansion programme in the 1990s, accompanied the trend towards including high-end leather fashion in non-specialist stores, meant that by the end of the 1990s it had been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Skip Pas, a general manager for North Beach Leather for 10 years and now the owner of Gold Coast Leather, is looking to keep the name alive and is currently negotiating to buy both the license and the name, which were recently sold at auction.
