Gold Toe Brands

Gold Toe Brands, Inc., is the third-largest United States based producer of socks.[1]

They produce 140 million pairs of socks annually.[1]They were started in Bally, Pennsylvania and in 2002 became Golden Toe Brands Inc.[2] Their original name was Gold Toe Hosiery and Trish McHale is the vice president, and according to him, he intended to create cheap socks for mostly men.[3][4][5]

History

Gold Toe was founded by Fritz S. Stern, Fritz Bendheim, and J. Kuglemanin in Bally, Pennsylvania on September 18, 1919, under the name Great American Knitting Mills.[2] In 1923, Rudolf Abrams, a cousin of Fritz Stern's wife, joined the company.[6]

During the Great Depression, Gold Toe began manufacturing men's dress socks with a toe made from high quality Irish linen, which made their product resistant to holes and fraying.[1] In the 1930s, the company added gold acetate thread to the toes of its socks in order to make it visually distinctive on store shelves.[1]

The manufacturer changed its name to Gold Toe Brands Inc. in 2002.[2]

Gold Toe merged with later competitor Moretz in 2006 to form Gold Toe Moretz. Gildan Activewear acquired the company in 2011. The following year, they partnered with advertising agency, DeVito/Verdi, to “revitalize and contemporize” the brand.

Operations

The company's operations headquarters is located in Burlington, North Carolina, with executive headquarters in New York City.[2] Gold Toe Brands, Inc. has shifted much of its manufacturing to China, particularly the Zhejiang province.[5]

Although its primary market is men's dress socks, Gold Toe Brands has expanded to other segments of the sock market, including women's and kids.[2] In 1983, it added a line of women's socks, then in 1986 it began producing boys' socks. In 1992, the brand started making women's tights.[2]

Gold Toe socks are on the American Podiatric Medical Association's approved list of brands for foot health.

See also

References
  1. Katya Andresen, Kate (FRW) Roberts (2006). Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 86–87. ISBN 978-0-7879-8148-8. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  2. Goldtoe Brands Inc. "Goldtoe's History". Goldtoe Brands Inc. Archived from the original on 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  3. Givhan, Robin (2006-07-24). "Blue-Chip Socks: Haute Hose by Vivek Nagrani, Just the Thing to Cool Your Heels". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  4. Harvard Medical School (2005). Foot Care Basics: Preventing and Treating Common Foot Conditions (Second ed.). Harvard Health Publications. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-933225-76-0. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  5. Ted C. Fishman (2005). China, Inc: how the rise of the next superpower challenges America and the world. Simon and Schuster. pp. 70–71. ISBN 978-0-7432-5752-7. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  6. 75th anniversary Collection of Memories, Great American Knitting Mills
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