LISC Awards Small Business Support Grant to Historic Black-Owned Tailor, JC Lofton Tailors

The 116 Yelp reviews of JC Lofton Tailors are full of clothing dramas that, in the care of this historic Black-owned and -operated shop, come to a glorious conclusion.

There’s the young woman who’d ordered a bridesmaid dress for her best friend’s wedding that on arrival proved unexpectedly “HUGE,” with no time to send it back: “I went to JC Lofton and begged for help. Man did they deliver.” Another client ran into some “last minute costume issues” before Halloween. “Eddie found a way to fix the problem just an hour before my big event. I can’t say how great the quality and service is.” One reviewer shares that his “height/body dimensions aren’t the best for buying suits off the rack”; in JC Lofton he discovered “an excellent resource in alleviating that issue.” “In the end,” observes yet another customer, “there's something extra special about a place that makes you feel welcome.”

Browsing through these rave reviews, though, one gets a sense for why business at JC Lofton has been way down this year. Who’s going to weddings or dressing sharp for the office? “It’s been a real struggle with this COVID,” says Julius E. “Eddie” Lofton, longtime proprietor of the shop on Washington’s U Street, traditionally known as the capital city’s Black Broadway. “Nobody’s wearing any clothes right now, and everybody’s working from home. I have clothes in my shop that people can’t pick up because they don’t have any money. They call me crying.”

A $10,000 grant from Wells Fargo through LISC is going toward the business’s rent, utilities, supplies—helping Lofton make do until an anticipated burst of demand in the spring. “We’re all suffering now,” he says. “I told my tailors, we just got to hold on together.”

For this small business, the pandemic is just one short chapter in a proud, sweeping history that goes all the way back to 1939. It was then Lofton’s grandfather, Josephus C. Lofton (the shop is named for him) became the first African American to found a tailoring school and shop in downtown DC. Teaching veterans, disabled people, and others the craft, Josephus Lofton was “one of the few Black people that had a contract with the government back in the day,” says the younger Lofton.

After Josephus moved his shop to 15^th and P streets, his grandkids would hang out there after school. They learned at his elbow. “Somebody might come in with a zipper off track,” recalls Lofton. “I kind of had a knack for fixing people’s zippers. He taught me how to press clothes, although I burnt up a couple things. Then he taught me how to do handwork and then from there to start making clothes, alterations.”

Maybe it’s not surprising that Lofton, his sister, and his brother all eventually opened their own tailoring businesses, following in the footsteps of the grandfather who once took them out for ice cream or to ride behind the fire truck.

Though Lofton owns his home within walking distance of the shop, he hasn’t yet met his aspiration to own the building where he does business. And prices are exploding in the fast-gentrifying, historically Black neighborhood of Shaw, pushing out many longtime residents and businesses. Lofton has watched it happen with sadness, remembering the salon owner who used to do Michelle Obama’s hair, the Ethiopian shopkeeper whose sale of single beers was intolerable to the new neighbors. Lofton’s own business has weathered decades of change.

Like his grandfather before him, he has catered to Washington’s elite—politicians, celebrities, and the well-heeled folk who move through the city’s fine hotels, for example—and just as graciously to the many who really can’t afford an impeccably tailored suit. Young students from nearby Howard University, for instance. “I would go and do the suit for them anyway,” says Lofton. “Once they get on their feet, they never forget, and they always come back.”