Exclusive's Goetz to Retire This Month
Apparel-industry veteran Stevi Goetz is calling it a career. Goetz, co-owner of The Exclusive menswear show and a long-time sales agent for a number of couture and menswear lines, will retire at the end of the month. The upcoming Exclusive Las Vegas show, to be held Aug. 26–28 at The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, will be her last show.
Goetz and The Exclusive co-founders Larry Hymes and Hyela Makoujy, as previously reported, sold the trade show to Norwalk, Conn.–based Business Journals Inc., publishers of MR magazine, for an undisclosed sum. As a result of the sale and noncompetitive clause in the deal, Goetz and Makoujy will retire. Hymes is continuing on with the new entity, called MRket.
Goetz said she will take some time off, get married and reemerge in a different business. She started in the industry in 1971 as a sales manager for several women’s European couture labels and then joined her former husband, Herb Goetz, in the menswear business, forming Los Angeles–based Touch USA, which was known for its “Miami Vice” jackets in the 1980s. In 1997, they formed the West Coast Exclusive as a regional menswear show to take some of the pressure off the reps, who were constantly on the road.
“There was a void in the marketplace. We thought that if we united with a combined show rather than run on the road all the time, it would be better for the retailer and the vendor.” The show expanded to Las Vegas in 2002.
“The vendors said we were doing such a wonderful job and wanted us to expand. MAGIC did not want us there, and we did our first show at The Palms, which probably was not the right venue. Then we jumped around to the Rio [Hotel], Mandalay Bay, the Sands [Expo & Convention Center] and finally The Venetian.”
Goetz said she had mixed emotions about leaving the business.
“I’m happy to retire, but I miss it, absolutely. The new owners have deeper pockets and can take the show to the next level. It will be good for the vendors,” she said. —Robert McAllister.
