Tuxedo renter gained formal education on job

Public Record, The, Oct 05, 2004 by Kleinschmidt, Janice

A three-button front, three-quarterlength, black Prince Edward jacket with notched lapel; purple ruffled shirt; and black velvet cummerbund and bow tie that matched the black velvet top collar of the jacket. Larry Spurlock recalls more details than most men do about the tuxedo he wore when he got married more than 32 years ago. But then, tuxedoes have played a prominent role in his life for 40 years.

It's not that Spurlock likes to get dressed to the nines and go to fancy events. He emphatically does not, but he likes to dress other men who do.

Spurlock owns Tuxedo Exchange, a tuxedo rental and sales company with four stores in the Coachella Valley.

"The way it actually started for me was just out of high school," he says. "My best friend had, in his senior year of high school, worked at a tailor shop in Cincinnati. After he graduated, the tailor had passed away and he and his father bought the business." The tailor also rented tuxedoes, and that's where the business shifted after his death. When Spurlock's friend, who was in the Army Reserve, was called to duty, he needed someone to run the shop during the day.

"As a favor to him, I worked in the mornings in the tuxedo shop while he was away in active duty," Spurlock says. He also worked a full-time job as a machinist in General Electric's large jet engine factory. Even after his friend returned, he continued working part time at the tuxedo shop while he took a leave of absence from General Electric to attend college.

About the time Spurlock graduated with a marketing degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, his friend took a position running Palm Beach Co.'s formal wear operation in Florida. "I was going to go for an MBA at Xavier [University in Columbus, Ohio], so I took a position with the tux company on a fulltime basis to financially put myself in a position to go for an MBA," Spurlock says. "I never got my MBA, and I have been in the tux business every since. I just got caught up in it."

In 1981, Spurlock moved to Van Nuys to manage one of Palm Beach's service centers - a 30,000-square-foot tuxedo rental warehouse.

"In 1986, there was a group that bought the Southern California operation from Palm Beach," Spurlock says. "In June 1989, 1 exchanged my stock in the company that bought it from Palm Beach for assets of the Coachella Valley." He got two Tuxedo Exchange stores, one in Cathedral City in the Canyon South shopping center on Highway 111 and one in the Town and Country shopping center on Highway 111 in Indio. In October, he opened a store next 'to Louise's Pantry in Palm Desert. Since then, Spurlock built a store on Date Palm Drive, where he moved the Cathedral City store and where he spends most of his time; moved the Palm Desert store to Desert Crossings shopping center; and opened a fourth location at Point Happy in La Quinta.

Tuxedo Exchange rents and sells complete tuxes and individual pieces, including coats, pants, shirts, ties, vests, cummerbunds, shoes, suspenders, studs and cufflinks, hats (fedoras are popular), chains, scarves, and canes.

"Forty years ago, when I started in the business, you would have one style or color," Spurlock says. "That was the end of the line, and ever since I've seen every color from browns to light blues to reds - you name it." He says there are now about 35 styles and colors. "Guys come in now and it's not what they have seen in Bride's magazine or GQ," he continues. "It's what they like. There's a huge number of choices and they're OK with whatever they choose."

The diversity makes it easier for Tuxedo Exchange to get the most from its inventory. "In the old days when the brown, double-breasted coat went out of style, you couldn't give it away," Spurlock says. "Now if we had one it would probably be right in the mix of what people would choose.

"People don't come in and say, 'What's in style?' That's not a question that they ask routinely," Spurlock says. "When I first started in the business, people would come in and they would tell us, 'I am getting married at four in the afternoon. What should I wear?' It was a disadvantage for us," he says. "We were just kids and they didn't trust us. We had an Encyclopedia Brittanica for etiquette, and it confirmed what we were telling them so they would trust us."

These days, Spurlock is supplying formal wear for weddings, quincineras, conventions, fundraisers, galas and individual events. The biggest single event in the desert for Tuxedo Exchange is the Desert AIDS Project Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards gala in February. In addition to renting tuxes to attendees, Spurlock donates suits to the waiters for the event. Other busy times occur in May because of high school proms and weddings and December because of numerous holiday parties.

Spurlock says perhaps the most difficult part of the rental business is getting people to return what they've borrowed. "They're ready to come pick them up, but not bring them back," he says.

Though he says he took more accounting than marketing in college, Spurlock leaves the company's book work to Janet.