GREER — Hands crossed, clad in dark suits and perfectly knotted ties, Bernard Price and Paul Smith Jr. stand in front of a wrack of coats stretching out of frame in both directions.
The black-and-white, 1980 photo was taken the same year the two business partners bought out Smith’s father to take ownership of Smith and James, a men’s clothing store in the heart of Greer. By then, the clothier was already a decades-old institution in the Upstate.
Much has changed since that black-and-white photo was taken close to five decades ago. The city of Greer declined amid the collapse of the textile industry in the latter years of the 20th century and resurged with the creation of the North American BMW plant and accompanying automotive business that followed.
Downtown went from a bustling city center to a virtual ghost town where most storefronts sat empty, then back to a thriving commercial core.
Through it all, Smith and James, which first opened its doors in 1916, has endured.
It looks different today than when Bernard Price and Smith Jr. were photographed or, for that matter, from when it was founded as Smith and Vaughn more than 100 years ago.
Custom tailoring and formal wear remains an important part of the business.
But the wall-to-wall racks of suits and sports coats, which once dominated store, have largely been replaced by more casual clothes like high-end chinos, leather jackets and designer vests.
Still, the core principals haven’t changed, said Brandon Price, who took over operations at the store from his father in the mid-2000s.
“Our business is built on customer service,” he said. “If you have a problem, we’re here. We do free tailoring on all of our goods. We’re here to make sure everything fits you.”
A family tradition
From the beginning, Smith and James has been a family business. In 1924, original founder Thomas L. Smith hired on his nephew Paul Smith Sr., who went on to buy into the business in 1945 after his uncle’s death. About 35 years later, Smith Jr. and Bernard Price, who had worked in the store together for close to 20 years, bought the elder Smith out of the business.
Bernard Price become the store’s sole owner in 1992 and his son Brandon joined the team five years later, making him the latest in a lineage stretching back more than a century.
Growing up, Brandon Price said he had no interest in getting involved in the family business. He worked at the the clothier’s since-closed Inman store briefly in high school, but he wasn’t convinced it was what he wanted to do.
When he left home for the University of South Carolina, though, he got a job at a men’s store called Lourie’s to help support himself through college.
The job was a learning experience. It was also a revelation.
“That really is the best thing I ever did, as far as working outside the family business,” he said. “It got my interest in this business.”
After graduating, he returned home to join his father at Smith and James. His commitment to the Greer clothier kept the business alive for another generation.
“My dad said many a times, ‘If you hadn’t come back, we would have closed many years ago,’” he said.
Close to three decades later, he’s still keeping the tradition alive.
In his time there, Price said he’s dressed generations of families.
On a Thursday afternoon two weeks before Christmas, long-time customer Rick Lee walked through the doors of Smith and James looking for a bow tie to match the suit he’d already bought from the store.
Lee has been shopping there for 30 years. Both of his sons bought their suits for their weddings there. That day, Lee was buying clothes to wear to his daughter’s.
“My grandson has just got to get a little bit older and he’ll come in here,” he said. “It’s just the whole feel. The tradition, the service and spending your money with local folks.”
While he went in for ties, a shirt hanging nearby caught his eye as he talked to Price near the front of the store.
“That’s your size, too,” Price said, laughing.
“I know it is,” Lee said with a smile. “See, I walked in for a bow tie and I’ll walk out with a shirt.”
After Price, sales associate Chip Bittner has been at Smith and James the longest. He started there in 2000 after leaving a Spartanburg men’s store.
Over the past two-and-a-half decades, he’s been there for the most important moments of his customers lives, from proms, to weddings, to funerals. Once, he was called to a nearby mortuary to tie a tie for a man who would soon be interred.
“I tied a bow tie over a coffin,” he said. “The family tried to pay me and I said, ‘No, not at all.’ I wouldn’t take a dime for that.”
Investing in Greer
The clothing shop on Greer’s Trade Street has weathered many storms since it first opened in 1916.
Rather than cutting his losses when downtown Greer’s fortunes took a turn for the worse, Price’s father doubled down, investing in the Upstate city that supported his business for so long. That choice paved the way for future growth.
In decades past, the rise of shopping malls and chain stores threatened to steal customers from the local shop. Now, many of those national companies appear to be declining or have disappeared entirely, while Smith and James is going strong.
Internet shopping now poses the biggest threat to the store’s bottom line, but Price said his business offers something online vendors never can.
“We know how this item fits, or how it fits different from others,” he said. “That’s just the customer service we give.”
The store’s greatest challenge came during the pandemic. For a business based on face-to-face interactions and personal relationships, Price said Covid-19 was nearly the death knell for the Upstate mainstay. But business surged when the world opened up again.
“When it came back, our tailored clothing business went through the roof,” he said. “People were wanting to dress up again because they had dressed down for so long.”
The Smith and James location on Greenville’s Verdae Boulevard — which opened in June 2021 replacing a Woodruff Road storefront — was a big part of that recovery.
More than anything, though, Price said he attributes the store’s survival and success to its regulars.
“We love to have new customers, but we certainly wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our loyal existing customers who have been with us for generations,” he said.
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