The Swansdown line of coats and suits were manufactured by America's largest firm of the sort, Morris W. Haft & Brothers, Inc. The company also made the Jaunty Juniors line. Morris Haft and his 6 brothers opened the company in 1916 and were very successful until the company was dissolved in 1950.
In piecing together clues, it appears that Morris W. Haft continued the Swansdown company until his own retirement in 1955. Haft made a lot of money in the coat and suit industry and formed a philanthropic foundation with his wife Fannie in 1958. They funded Haft Hall, a dormitory at Syracuse University and the Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Auditorium at the Fashion Institute in New York.
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| Swansdown wool tweed coat, 1949 |
In 1965, Morris Haft sold his personal collection of original Impressionist artworks at auction. The sale made the news when one of the paintings, Van Gogh's "The Sower" sold for $250.000 to an anonymous bidder. The sale brought in nearly $1.5 million total.
Full page ads from Charm Magazine, 1949.
3rd image by Ray Solowinski for Charm Magazine, 1949.
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