Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter dies at 99; Build an empire of tulle and satin

With her husband, Jack, she developed I. Kleinfeld & Son into a bridal supermarket that became a New York institution.

Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter, who with her husband, Jack, built the tulle and satin empire known as Kleinfeld's, the bridal superstore that for decades , drew women from around the world to the unlikely location of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, died March 29 in Manhattan. She was 99.

The cause was an intestinal blockage, her son Robert Schachter said.

I . Kleinfeld & Son, as it was officially known, was a family business, originally a small fur business founded by Mrs. Schachter's father, Isadore Kleinfeld. But it was Mrs. Schachter, known as Miss Hedda, and her husband - who, although his initials were J.S., was nonetheless known as M.K. - who developed it into what would perhaps become the largest and most famous bridal store in the world. world.

Patricia Leigh Brown, writing in The New York Times in 1987, described it as a store "which is to wedding dresses what the Pentagon is to fighter-bombers".

For Miss Hedda and Mr. K., it was a seamless ascent from Persian lambskins to clouds of tulle. In the late 1960s when they first started, wedding dresses were mostly limited variations on traditional themes found in department stores and small boutiques. It was Miss Hedda's innovation, noting the changing appetites of the times, to offer as many styles as possible, which she traveled the world to find.

Back home, she assembled an army of stylists, fitters, seamstresses, beaders and pressers to customize the offerings for each bride-to-be. And every year, thousands of women came from as far away as Hong Kong and Nigeria to make the pilgrimage to Bay Ridge.

"Young women and their retinues, a real bridal wave, wait in the lobby, dog-eared bridal magazines tight," Ms. Brown wrote of a typical Saturday at Kleinfeld's. "They're chasing their 'aura' wedding day. They await the wisdom of Miss Judith, Miss Iman, Miss Irene, Miss Flo and the other Kleinfeld bridal consultants who, rummaging through the store's 800-plus wedding dress styles (by appointment only), will help them find the dress. Whoever makes them appear, says Miss Flo, as if they "come down from a cloud." »

This cloud, however, was loaded with a multitude of choices: satin, brocade, lace or chiffon? Beaded or embroidered? How about both? Ragamuffin or sculpted sleeve? Illusion neckline or portrait neckline? How about a belt on the hips, a bolero or a huge taffeta bow? There were hairstyles to ponder – tiaras, crowns, and “entrances” (mini tiaras on a comb) – and veil lengths to ponder, including but not limited to cathedral, cage to birds and fingertips.

Miss Hedda oversaw the entire operation like a benevolent matriarch, addressing her team over loudspeakers while Mr. K. held the books, manually and with precision, in his office upstairs, which was also the Schachters'. apartment.

For years, the setting was a no-frills affair, an 11,000-square-foot dappled-pink maze of mudrooms, storage closets, and bathrooms. waiting. In 1987, the Schachters hired high-end architect Peter Marino to spruce up the place.

Mr. Marino gave it an elegant new entrance and a neoclassical stone facade because, as he said at the time, "marriage is a neoclassical institution." He couldn't do much more, he said in a phone interview, because the Schachters were constitutionally unable to shut down the business long enough for a proper renovation.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"> Anyway, Mr. Marino and Miss Hedda have become lifelong friends. "I loved it," he said. “She was extremely genuine. She had no artifice, which is so unusual in life. It's so relaxing."

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