California Apparel News

Adele Morse Platt, philanthropist and former apparel-industry executive, died on Sept. 30 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. She was 87.

Platt was the widow of Harvey Morse, who, with his brother Barney, founded the California Mart in 1962. The wholesale apparel venue eventually grew to encompass three buildings and is today known as the California Market Center. Platt was one of several general partners of the building, which remained primarily family owned and operated until Equitable Life Assurance took the building over in 1994. Today, the building is owned by Jamison Properties.

A Philadelphia native, Platt moved with her family in the 1930s to Los Angeles, where she graduated from Fairfax High School. In 1940, she met and married Harvey Morse. Throughout their 39-year marriage, Morse worked in the apparel industry, first in the lingerie business and then as the developer and owner of the California Mart.

After Morse’s death in 1979, she married Conrad “Conny” Platt in 1983.

Throughout her life, Adele Morse Platt was an avid supporter of many philanthropic causes. She was active in her local Haddassah and was a supporter of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

There is an Adele Morse Platt Conference Center at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, Calif. She received the City of Hope’s Spirit of Life award in 1987. In 2004, she received the Reflections award from the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging.

“She devoted herself to support of the Jewish Home for the Aging, City of Hope, Temple Israel of Hollywood, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center and many other causes,” said her son-in-law Rich Reinis. “Charity was a serious business for Adele and a barometer she used in choosing her friends.”

Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association, knew Platt through the Morse family. In the 1990s, Metchek served as the general manager of the California Mart. “She was the philanthropist in the family,” Metchek recalled. “And she had great taste and style sense.”

Joyce Eisenberg Keefer, owner of The New Mart, was a friend of Platt and her husband. The two women were both active supporters of many of the same charities, including the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging.

“She was a darling, wonderful lady,” Keefer said.

Barbara Kaplan, owner of the Extra Secretary at the CMC and Platt’s niece (she said she always called Platt “my ’tanta’”), described her aunt as “a woman of extreme integrity who led by example.”

“She believed nothing was more important that family and friends,” Kaplan said, adding, “Adele and Harvey, being the key founders of the California Mart, changed the world of fashion.” We thank her for that, and she will be dearly missed.”

Platt is survived by her husband, Conny; her children, David Morse, Susan Lebow, Marjorie Richards and Lois Reinis; sons-in-law Stephen Richards and Richard Reinis, Neal and Fran Platt; 15 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren (with three more on the way, according to Rich Reinis).

Services are scheduled for Oct. 2 at Hillside Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Adele Morse Platt’s name to the Jewish Home for the Aging or another charity.—Alison A. Nieder

A longer remembrance of Adele Morse Platt by Rich Reinis can be found here.