California Apparel News

The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.—and the subsequent grounding of the nation’s airlines—left many Los Angeles apparel industry executives stranded and far from home. As the tragic events unfolded and reports came in of continued airport closures and delayed flights at the airports that did open, local executives began to try to find their way back home to Los Angeles.

When the nation grounded its planes on Sept. 11, Bisou Bisou’s husband-and-wife team of Marc and Michele Bohbot were both traveling—she was in Florida and he was returning from France.

For Marc Bohbot, a relatively simple trip from Paris to Los Angeles became an odyssey that led him to Canada and San Francisco and then down through central California.

When Bohbot boarded his flight on Sept. 11 in Paris it was about 5 a.m. in New York, he said. A few hours into the flight, the crew announced they were having difficulty reaching the United States and had orders to land in Calgary, Canada, he said.

“They gave no more information, so I didn’t find out about what had happened until after we landed,” he said. “When I checked my cell phone messages none of them explained the situation. I thought there was a major earthquake in Los Angeles.”

Bohbot said he immediately called his wife, who was attending the Material World trade show in Miami Beach. The two were very worried for each others’ safety and feared Los Angeles would be next to fall under attack, he said.

Michele Bohbot said news of the disaster circulated around the show floor at Material World.

“People at the show were saying that the terrorists were attacking major cities at around 9 a.m., when people were arriving at work—and my husband was on his way to the West Coast from Paris,” she said. “I called the airlines and they told me his plane was going to Canada. When I called back an hour later, they said it was going back to Paris.”

She said she began to fear that her husband’s plane was also hijacked because no one knew where it was.

Fortunately that was not the case and the two soon connected, but it would be several tense days before either could return home.

On Sept. 13, Michele Bohbot boarded one of the first planes leaving Miami for Los Angeles, while Marc Bohbot caught the first plane he could to California—an international flight setting down in San Francisco. The two connected by cell phone when Michele Bohbot landed but decided Marc should rent a car and make the 380-mile trek south to the couple’s home in Los Angeles. Marc Bohbot said it was a long haul, but worth every moment as long as he didn’t have to get on another plane.

“He said he was going to fly home, but I told him to drive and not worry about the flight coming home,” Michele Bohbot said, adding that her husband was glad to know she was home with their children.

Even though the Bohbots are frequent travelers, they said they would have preferred to be together after finding out about Sept. 11’s tragic events.

“I don’t want to think about flying for now. Marc and I were supposed to go on a big trip in Europe, but we’re cancelling our reservations,” Michele Bohbot said. “Right now, we don’t want to leave the family alone.”

The Bohbots are now home and back to work, but they said it has been a somber week.

“I look at the poor families on TV and it is so terrible,” said Marc Bohbot. “Before this I thought America was so invincible, and that really has an effect on you.” Competitors Band Together

The disaster in New York tore buildings apart, but it also united many who were displaced by the resultant interruption in air travel. Four manufacturers, including Richard Clareman, president of Self Esteem; Jay Balaban, president of Connected Apparel; Ira Rosenberg of City Triangles; and Luke Harris of Brioche, all put aside their competitive postures and banded together with Mark Raskin, principal of Samsung/Caravel, to charter a plane from New York to Los Angeles.

“It brought together a lot of us from different companies, and we were able to get home safely in one piece,” said Clareman. “It’s all friendly competition and Mark is a supplier to all of us. The running joke was how much money we would charge back to Mark for the cost of the plane.”

All five of the companies were in New York for fashion week. Clareman recalled that he and seven of his employees he brought in from Los Angeles were in the showroom when the disaster struck.

“Our immediate reaction was shock,” he said. His company owns a corporate apartment in Manhattan on Houston Street—within the area cordoned off by police—so Clareman and his staff gathered at his hotel. On Sept. 12, Clareman was trying to find a way home, but the airports were still closed. Clareman’s wife, a former buyer for TJ Maxx, was not only anxious to have her husband with her in Los Angeles and out of harm’s way, but she was also already upset over losing seven friends on the plane from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center.

When the airports reopened on Sept. 13, there was still confusion mounting, and many of the flights were scrapped, including the flight for Clareman and his group.

“Mark was at Newark Airport and the rest of us were at JFK [Airport in New York],” Clareman said. “Jay, Ira and Luke were on the plane when the SWAT team and the FBI took someone off the plane. When they got off the plane, we didn’t know where we were going.”

Clareman said that the group that came off of the plane joined his group and went to a restaurant near the airport, where he placed a curious call to American Express.

“The seven people who were with me got placed on seven different flights, and we didn’t think any of us would be able to go,” he said. “I called my American Express Travel partner, and not thinking that they would be able to, I asked if they could get a jet to go from New York to Los Angeles on Friday.In a half-hour, they had a Gulf Stream jet agree to meet us at the airport for the low price of $50,000.”

Clareman said that his group was a bit concerned about the plane and the service, but were made to feel at ease by the company’s 12-year relationship with American Express. By 1 a.m. Friday morning, arrangements had been made for all 12 passengers on the chartered jet, and everyone agreed to meet at 7:30 a.m. for a 9 a.m. flight.

The group was scheduled to fly out ofNew Jersey on Friday morning, but when they arrived at the airport in the pouring rain, the airport was closed in anticipation of President Bush’s arrival.

“It was reminiscent of leaving Beirut or Saigon the day Saigon fell,” said Clareman. “We finally got through to the gates, but since the president was flying in, they weren’t going to open up the airport.”

American Express helped reschedule the plane to take off from White Plains, N.Y.—two hours away—at 11:30 a.m. After a brief stop in Chicago, the party arrived safely in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon.

“We pooled our resources and got home safe and sound,” said Clareman, who added that similar plans should be examined for manufacturers who have to meet in major cities like Chicago and Dallas.

“We all have to travel to Chicago to Sears and Dallas for J.C. Penney,” he said. “If we pool together, this is a way to do it and be cost-effective.”

Clareman said that while the terrorist strikes were horrific, the nation has to move forward and business must continue, as must business travel.

“I would fly again,” he said. “I just need to get to the places to get the business. I was supposed to travel to Dallas, Chicago and Nashville, but I put that on hold. I don’t know when I will go to New York again. It’s more about being next to your family right now.”Airport Insecurities

Zoe Campbell was also eager to return home to Los Angeles. The public relations executive was in New York for client Custo Barcelona’s runway show.

Campbell was booked on an evening flight to Los Angeles on American Airlines from JFK Airport on Sept. 13—the first day New York airports were reported to resume a limited amount of scheduled flights. As advised, she arrived to the airport several hours early expecting to wait in hour-long lines and go through extensive security checks. But when she arrived in the afternoon, Campbell said she was surprised—and a bit disappointed—to see only one police officer standing outside the airport terminal.

At the check-in counter, Campbell was told that her 7:00 flight was cancelled but that she could get on a 4:00 flight that was boarding at 3:30—but she would have to hurry.

“I was concerned about security in terms of what I had to go through from that point and whether I’d actually make the flight,” she recalled. “But the person at the check-in counter told me that it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Campbell said she felt uncomfortable and confused as she anticipated extreme security measures, particularly for the first flights out of New York.

“I was expecting to see National Guard [officers] or something—just something different to make me feel more secure. But I didn’t,” she said.

Security at the X-ray point just before entering the gate area was also light, Campbell said, adding that it seemed like there were only a few extra people examining the X-ray monitors and “spot-checking people” with metal detectors.

“They weren’t doing it to every person that walked through,” she said. “They definitely didn’t use it on me. I was just very surprised.”

The gate area wasn’t too crowded, although the flight was full from other cancelled and consolidated flights. But Campbell said she was relieved to see four armed customs police officers exiting the airplane after making prior inspections of some sort on the aircraft.

“They had stepped off the plane and were standing opposite our gate, just kind of watching movement in the terminal,” she said. “But they were definitely watching our gate in particular.”

The flight boarded in the usual manner, starting with first class and business class, and after a 20-minute break in between, the main cabin, where Campbell was seated.

Several announcements were made in the aircraft regarding delays and asking passengers to please be patient and to please turn off their cellular phones.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Campbell said, “But then [the captain] kept asking and repeating to turn your cell phones off. A lot of people did, but there were some, obviously, who didn’t, because the captain sent his two pilots and some flight attendants out and they confiscated some cell phones from people.”

The captain continued making announcements stating that the flight would, in fact, leave, but it would still be delayed a little longer due to security reasons. Several hours passed and the flight was still grounded, but passengers remained patient in their seats.

“People were reading, everyone seemed relaxed,” Campbell recalled. “The plane was quiet.”

But not for long.

Two or three hours had passed when passengers in the economy section of the plane heard a commotion coming from farther forward in the plane, Campbell said, adding that it sounded as if someone was having a fit in an unfamiliar language.

Confusion and panic set in and Campbell said she remembers turning to look behind her at a woman who was crying. It was then that she saw about ten “SWAT team or special-force police” wearing camouflage and helmets and carrying semi-automatic rifles coming from the back of the plane.

“They just appeared out of nowhere,” she said.“Nobody heard anything. Nobody heard them get on. They obviously came in from the back.”

“Four of them ran down both aisles with guns and blocked off each section so this guy was trapped at his seat,” she continued. “They had people get on from the front of the plane, and then there were these guys coming from the back of the plane, so he had no way of going anywhere.”

Although Campbell did not see exactly what happened thereafter—passengers were told to put their heads down as far as possible—she did see the man get escorted off the back of the plane, hand-cuffed, with a gun to his back.

Police came in after to search the overhead bins, Campbell said, adding that they took one piece of carry-on luggage from the last overhead bin in economy class in the back of the plane, even though the man they escorted off the plane had been seated in business class closer to the front of the plane. An American Airlines employee later told Campbell that the man taken off the plane had false identification. Passengers on the flight were told to retrieve their luggage at the baggage claim and asked to leave because the airport was being shut down.

“A lot of people were shaken up, including myself,” Campbell said. “I don’t mind admitting I was in tears at that point, not knowing what to do. There were a lot of people who maybe didn’t know where to go, where to stay, and nobody said anything. There was no announcement or anything.”

Outside the airport, many people were left stranded. There were no taxis and none coming. Campbell was told that she had to order a car service if she needed to be driven anywhere. Luckily, she managed to share a car with others who lived in Manhattan and who had already ordered a car to pick them up.

The next day, the news reported that a man was detained at JFK Airport, but Campbell said she feels like there was a lot of information that was withheld. But, she added, perhaps it’s better that way.

“I think they used Thursday as a test to see if anybody [involved in the Sept. 11 attack] would appear at the airport,” she said. “I think they made the security to look as if it was just normal so people might feel comfortable getting on a plane and that it was probably a trap. That’s how I felt.”

Campbell eventually flew home to Los Angeles on Saturday—again on American Airlines. But on Saturday, she noted, the security felt much tighter.Airport Accommodations

Alden Halpern, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based junior manufacturer Tyte, was also stranded in New York. Halpern was in New York working at his company’s Broadway showroom during the week and soon found himself one of the many people trying to catch a flight home.

Halpern had reservations to fly from JFK Airport, but flight after flight was cancelled—including a flight that was cancelled after police escorted possible suspects off the plane—forcing the executive to wait at the airport in hopes of catching the first available flight.

“I think the scariest part of this was staying overnight at the airport and not being able to contact my family because the phones were out of service,” he said. “The whole experience was very discomforting.”