The biggest fashion company most people have never heard of. Odds are it made the belt you're wearing right now - whatever the label says.
Open a department-store display of belts, wallets, hats or gloves and you will read a dozen famous names - Levi's, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Columbia, Dickies. What you will almost never read is the name of the company that actually designed, sourced and shipped most of them. That company is Randa Apparel & Accessories, a privately held, family-run business headquartered in New York and widely described as the world's largest men's accessories company.
Randa's product is deceptively simple: the everyday accessory. Belts and wallets, headwear and neckwear, gloves and umbrellas, slippers and small leather goods, plus - since 2019 - tailored clothing and sportswear. What is not simple is the machine behind it. Randa designs, sources, manufactures, distributes and merchandises across a portfolio of more than 30 owned and licensed brands, moving over 100 million units a year into more than 10,000 stores. In 2019 its sales crossed $1 billion.
The company has spent a century perfecting a single, unglamorous discipline and then renting that discipline to the biggest names in fashion. It is, in the most literal sense, the business behind the brands.
The story starts in 1910, when the Spiegel family began selling neckwear on Manhattan's Lower East Side under the name Spiegel Neckwear. Randa Neckwear was incorporated in 1935, and in 1965 Herbert Spiegel acquired it - folding the two threads of the family business together. For most of the twentieth century, Randa was simply a very good neckwear company.
Then it started buying. Beginning with Woodstock Neckwear of London in 1993, Randa strung together more than fifteen acquisitions over three decades: WEMCO and the heritage label Countess Mara in 1997, luxury belt-maker Trafalgar in 2003, men's-furnishings maker Swank in 2012, and - the leap from accessories into apparel - the Haggar clothing brand in 2019. Each deal added craft, shelf space, or both.
The through-line is patience. Randa has stayed private and family-controlled across five generations, which let it play a long game its publicly listed rivals could not: absorb a brand, integrate its sourcing, and wait.
Randa runs a hybrid model. It licenses the right to make accessories under famous third-party brands, and it owns a set of heritage brands outright. Revenue flows from wholesale sales to department stores, mass, specialty and off-price retailers, plus private-label programs and operating partnerships. The real asset underneath is vertically integrated capability - design, global sourcing, logistics and in-store merchandising - that a brand would rather rent than build.
That is why a company you have never heard of can sit behind names you know by heart. Brands want the logo on the belt. Randa is content to be the reason the belt exists.
FIG. 1 - RELATIVE SCALE OF RANDA'S OPERATIONS. FIGURES APPROXIMATE, DRAWN FROM COMPANY AND PUBLIC SOURCES.
If it finishes an outfit and rarely gets photographed, Randa probably makes it.
Ties and neckwear - the founding product line that started it all on the Lower East Side.
Men's and women's leather and fabric belts for licensed brands and private labels - Randa's historic strength.
Wallets, card cases and small leather goods, including technology-enabled products built for partners like Cole Haan.
Hats and caps spanning casual, dress and outdoor across licensed and owned labels.
Dress and casual pants, suits and sportswear, anchored by the Haggar brand.
Rainwear, umbrellas, gloves and cold-weather accessories, expanded through the Totes Isotoner partnership.
Slippers and footwear-adjacent accessories distributed across retail channels.
End-to-end brand management: 1M+ sq ft of distribution and ~3,500 retail merchandisers servicing stores.
A selection of the licensed and owned brands under Randa's roof:
★ = BRAND OWNED BY RANDA. OTHERS PRODUCED UNDER LICENSE.
Randa's direct customers are retailers and the brand owners who license products to it. Its goods reach shoppers through more than 10,000 stores, with roughly 100 million units shipped a year and about 3,500 merchandisers keeping shelves stocked and correct.
What sets Randa apart from a generic contract manufacturer is scope. It does not just cut and sew - it manages the whole life of a category for a brand, from design and global sourcing through logistics and the last-mile work of merchandising a store. Competitors range from other accessories makers like Fossil, Bioworld, Concept One and Mundi to brand owners that could pull production in-house. Randa's answer is a century of category depth and a distribution footprint that is expensive to replicate.
The Spiegel family launches Spiegel Neckwear on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
The Randa name is formally established as a neckwear company.
The family consolidates ownership, setting the stage for expansion.
Randa buys Woodstock Neckwear of London, the first of 15+ deals.
Adds New Orleans' WEMCO and the heritage neckwear label Countess Mara.
Randa acquires the luxury men's belt and suspender maker.
Randa buys men's-furnishings maker Swank Inc. for about $57 million.
Randa acquires Haggar (and Tribal), moving beyond accessories; sales top $1 billion.
PVH licenses Randa to make Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger belts.
Randa partners with Marquee Brands to acquire Totes Isotoner, expanding into umbrellas and gloves.
Randa remains controlled by the Spiegel family, now generations deep. On the marketing side, David J. Katz serves as Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, working with leadership on strategy, M&A and transformation - and, notably, giving an intentionally invisible company a public story. Justin Spiegel serves as a senior executive and Chief Legal Officer, and framed the 2024 Totes Isotoner deal as a chance to expand into new categories like umbrellas and reach new retail channels.
There's a strong chance the belt you're wearing right now was made by Randa - even though the label says something else.
Despite $1B+ in sales and products in thousands of stores, Randa's own Instagram following is tiny. A company built to stay behind the label.
The company was known as Randa Accessories until the Haggar era pushed it into full apparel.
From Countess Mara neckwear to Swank cufflinks, Randa owns heritage names most shoppers forgot it holds.
Randa designs, sources, manufactures and distributes fashion accessories and apparel - belts, wallets, headwear, gloves, umbrellas, slippers, tailored clothing and sportswear - under 30-plus owned and licensed brands, selling primarily through retailers.
No. Randa is a privately held, family-run business, controlled by the Spiegel family across multiple generations.
Licensed partners include Levi's, Dockers, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Columbia, Dickies, Cole Haan, Guess, Tommy Bahama and Kenneth Cole. Owned brands include Haggar, Tribal, Swank and Countess Mara.
Randa has surpassed $1 billion in annual sales, employs roughly 2,000 people across about 11 countries, ships over 100 million units a year and reaches more than 10,000 stores.
Its roots trace to Spiegel Neckwear, started on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1910; Randa Neckwear was incorporated in 1935 and acquired by Herbert Spiegel in 1965.