David J. Hindlemann, who died Nov. 10 at age 90, ran a succession of local custom-tailoring businesses, including the Aurora store where he worked nearly six days a week until recently.
Born and raised in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Hindlemann graduated from high school at age 16 and reluctantly turned down a Syracuse University athletic scholarship to help his family during the Great Depression.
With his father, a garment-industry veteran, he lit out for Colorado in 1933 and worked for a Denver clothing manufacturer. In 1936, David Hindlemann established Pioneer Wholesale Tailors on Stout Street in downtown Denver.
During World War II, he served as a lieutenant in the Army and was awarded two Bronze Stars and an oak leaf cluster. Before being discharged, Hindlemann supervised a Berlin factory hastily retooled to manufacture civilian clothing for concentration camp survivors who had nothing but their striped pajama-like prison uniforms.
After the war, he returned to his Denver shop, which had been retooled to produce military uniforms. Since customers who once wanted custom- tailored suits now bought mass- produced clothing, Hindle mann changed his approach.
He shut down the Stout Street store and bought a building on 17th and Welton streets. He opened there as Bell Tailors, courting business from private schools, Western-wear companies, medical clinics, military organizations and marching-band directors.
At about the same time, he married Phyllis Bernstein Brill, a war widow who occasionally helped at the small shop. Most of the work was jobbed out to Denver seamstresses working at home.
“He was outsourcing before we knew what outsourcing was,” said daughter Debra Webster of Denver.
The business moved again to South Fox Street, where Hindlemann bought a building. He focused full time on marching-band uniforms, and his company became one of the country’s most prolific manufacturers of band uniforms. The work gave him a soft spot for the irreverent musical “The Music Man” and its dodgy but mellifluous star Harold Hill, who, like Hindlemann, was a persuasive salesman.
“Dad could sell overshoes to the Arabs, and if they got sweaty feet, then he’d tell them a wonderful reason why sweaty feet were the best thing going,” Webster said.
“He had a recipe box of excuses and reasons. I never saw anybody so wonderful at improvising.”
Hindlemann sold his company in 1981, intending to retire, but got back into the business with Custom Uniform Co., which still operates under Webster’s direction.
Besides Webster, survivors include daughter Joanne Berger of Prescott, Ariz.; son Jon Hindlemann of Denver; and four grandchildren. His wife died earlier this year.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
