biz413 / the next gen
S t o r y a n d P h o t o s B y L i a m G o r m a n
All Stitched Up
ELEGANT STITCHES ’ FUTURE IS SECURE WITH THIS FATHER-SON TEAM
WHEN AL ENCHILL , started making clothes from his basement in the mid- ’ 90s , he never imagined that he would be building a legacy for his growing family , one stitch at a time . Now nearly three decades in business , Elegant Stitches in Pittsfield has established itself as the go-to spot for custom embroidery and screen printing — not just for larger Berkshire entities such as Greylock Federal Credit Union , Tanglewood , and Williams College , but also landing contracts with the FBI and the U . S . Army .
“ I strongly believe in government contracts ,” says Al . “ Once you have it , you can grow knowing that you have a budget you can rely upon .”
This was a lesson Al learned early on after leaving his country of Ghana in 1988 for the United States . He had dreams of studying law in America , but tuition was more than he could afford . An uncle in Connecticut showed him how to bid on government contracts — specifically with the U . S . Postal Service ( USPS )— and Al landed a couple jobs hauling bulk mail . One of his routes brought him to the Berkshires , and he was drawn to the area . He got to know it even better by landing a contract with the USPS in Pittsfield .
The entrepreneurial Al started his next adventure from the income he earned . His wife at the time was a seamstress and designed garments , so they started selling African clothes . “ We weren ' t making any headway around here , but the machine had an embroidery component to it ,” says Al . “ So we started embroidering .”
Customers responded more to the embroidery work than to the African clothes , so Al did some research . “ There wasn ' t any embroidery shop in Pittsfield . Almost everybody was sending jobs out of the area to get them done . So we started with a single ‘ head ’ in our basement .”
A single head means you can only embroider one piece at a time . From that small and simple start , Al built up a brand at local craft shows and was able to move his business in 1997 from a basement to a location on First Street in Pittsfield .
They were able to weather the challenges along the way because Al kept his work with the post office . Some of those rival challenges were not what every small business comes across . “ People were throwing stones at our building at one point ,” says Al . A neighboring business ran a glass company and was able to help with quick repairs . “ He ’ d come at night to patch it for me ,” says Al . His neighbor then decided to put a plexiglass material so it would be difficult to break . “ That kind of cooled it off .”
Rocks are one thing , but then an arsonist burned down their First Street location . “ We occupied the first floor , and a guy torched it from the basement , burned the whole thing down ,” says Al . With help from the community , he relocated to Tyler Street temporarily and then eventually purchased his current location at 237 First Street .
Elegant Stitches now boasts having 32 heads for their embroidery business and eight employees . But the most exciting addition to the business is Al ’ s partner , his son Auric . The second of four sons , Auric was born the same year that the business was born in 1995 . He is still learning the ropes , the threads , and all the stitches that make the business thrive . At college , the family business was never far from his thoughts . While playing lacrosse at Tufts , Auric saw an opportunity to expand the business into team apparel by selling his own teammates new
54 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Holiday Spring 2024 2023