Irving J Shulman

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/business/30shulman.html?_r=0

Irving Shulman, Retailer of Discount Apparel, Dies at 96
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: March 29, 2011

Irving J. Shulman, who founded the Daffy’s clothing store chain and brought discount fashion to Fifth Avenue through quirky marketing and a promise of “clothing bargains for millionaires,” died on Friday in Houston. He was 96 and lived in Manhattan. Enlarge This Image

Daffy's Irving Shulman, who founded Daffy's almost 50 years ago. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son, Dr. Robert J. Shulman, said.

Mr. Shulman died just short of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the original store, Daffy Dan’s Bargain Town in Elizabeth, N.J. The chain, under the shortened name, now has 17 stores in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

When Daffy’s opened its first New York City location in 1986 on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, it was seen as the “coming of age of the off-price apparel industry,”a retail consultant told The New York Times.

Mr. Shulman used personal charm and eye-catching marketing to build his business. Dressed in a suit with a handkerchief tucked into a breast pocket, he was a familiar sight helping customers on the sales floors, mostly at the 57th Street store in Manhattan. At one store he posted a mannequin on the roof to attract passers-by, who would rush in warning that a woman was about to jump. At another outlet he parked a Rolls-Royce outside to underscore the “bargains for millionaires” slogan.

In 2009, Daffy’s, which also sells household goods, held a promotional contest offering a $700 monthly lease for a year on a furnished West Village apartment that normally rented for $7,000.

As a family-owned business, Daffy’s does not disclose its financial performance, but Mr. Shulman’s daughter and the company’s chairwoman, Marcia Wilson, said it had $150 million in sales in 2010.

Irving Jack Shulman was born on May 6, 1914, in Krolevets, which was then in Russia and is now in Ukraine. When he was 6, he came to the United States with his mother and siblings. They joined his father, who supported the family by shoveling coal and later opened a dry goods store.

From an early age, Mr. Shulman demonstrated a knack for sales, selling clothes door-to-door as a boy in Rahway, N.J He left school after the eighth grade.

After serving in the Army in World War II, Mr. Shulman started a weekend auction business, and in 1946 he and his brother opened a store called Mickey Finn’s. Mr. Shulman opened the first of his Daffy’s stores in Elizabeth, N.J., in April 1961.

He was married for 58 years to Shirley Weinstock, who died in 2000. Besides his son Robert and his daughter, Marcia, he is survived by another son, Michael; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.