Everyone Thinks We’re Crazy

Everyone, especially people in the garment industry, thinks we’re crazy. I spent last week at the Global Tex International Textile Show in LA where I spoke with many textile manufacturers who said there wasn’t a cottonball’s chance in hell we could make a garment from seed to store within the state of California. That means grown here, spun here, knitted here, cut here, sewn here, sold here. As far as we can tell it hasn’t happend in this state for decades.

We’ve got the cutting and sewing steps down - our San Francisco production folks are the best! We can likely find someone to knit the fabric in LA where, thanks to the reviled Christian Audigier, there are still a lot of t-shirts made. There is still a small group of farmers that grow cotton in California which we may be able to acquire if we meet the right people and if the weather is cooperative. The only step we’re missing is the spinning. After the cotton is picked and cleaned it must be taken to a spinner who turns it into yarn, a difficult process. According to about 23 knowledgable sources we’ve spoken with there are no modern spinning machines in California. In fact the only spinners left in the states are in the Carolinas. Even discussing those companies is like reading the obituaries. One connected industry vet pulled out his rolodex (yeah, old school) and flipped through it saying, “They’re gone. They’re gone. Closed last year. Gone. Gone…”

Of course all those jobs are gone too…