Portland-based school uniform company abruptly closes its doors, laying off staff of more than 100 workers

Portland-based clothing maker DENNIS Uniform has laid off its entire staff of over 100 workers in the city, shuttered its office on Southeast Hawthorne Blvd. and closed all of the company’s roughly 40 sites across the country, according to a company notification to state officials dated Oct. 19.

Companies that lay off a significant number of workers must notify the state under a federal law known as the WARN Act. In most cases, a business is required to give a nearly two-month notice. However, DENNIS Uniform interim CEO Lawrence Perkins told state officials it was invoking the so-called “faltering company” exception.

“This exception allows us to provide less than 60 days’ notice when a company is actively seeking new capital or business opportunities to avoid layoffs, but the company is unable to obtain the financing or business needed to continue operations,” Perkins wrote in the required WARN notice. “Our company has been working diligently to secure additional funding. Unfortunately, despite our material efforts to do so, we were unsuccessful in securing the necessary resources, making the layoffs unavoidable at this time. We will be closing all sites throughout the country.”

The company was founded in downtown Portland in 1920 as a nurse uniform manufacturer, according to the DENNIS Uniform website. The clothing company started making school uniforms in 1947, the same year it opened its first retail store. DENNIS continued in the school uniform business for decades, including making the plaid school uniform costumes for the movie The Princess Diaries in 2001.

For the first 70 years of DENNIS’s existence, Americans mostly bought clothes manufactured in the U.S. However, changing trade policy and lower labor costs outside the U.S. has largely driven clothes manufacturing to other countries. It’s made it much harder for local clothes makers to compete in recent years.

DENNIS Uniform was started by a Portland family that owned it for generations. In 2017, investment firm Spanos Barber Jesse & Co. bought a majority stake in the school uniform provider. In January another private equity firm, Origami Capital, invested in DENNIS. That same month, the company opened a major distribution center in Fort Worth, Texas.

Representatives from DENNIS Uniform, Spanos Barber Jesse & Co. and Origami Capital did not respond to OPB’s requests for comment. The majority of laid-off DENNIS employees in Portland are represented by Local 555 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which confirmed being notified of the company closure but didn’t have further details.

DENNIS Uniform joins a list of other Oregon companies backed by private equity investors experiencing financial hardships. The private equity firm that owns Sizzle Pie and Rudy’s Barbershop, Sortis Holdings, is facing lawsuits for unpaid bills and other financial troubles.

Private equity firms tend to have a certain playbook when they become a majority investor in an existing, established company.

That playbook has an upside and a downside, according to Angela Jackson, managing director of Portland Seed Fund and private equity expert.

The upside is the private equity firm brings capital and expertise to the table. Jackson said firms often help companies reduce expenses, become more efficient and grow in profitability. The downside is the cost-saving methods often come from cutting staff.

“Some of these smaller operating companies that have been (around for) generations, they face difficult choices,” Jackson said. “And I see why they take capital – they do it because it’s the best option available to them at the time, and unfortunately it can have consequences locally for jobs or closing in some cases.”