While President Trump is working hard to enhance domestic manufacturing, companies such as American Giant are working in tandem to give wings to this idea. The company is pushing manufacturing back to the US home ground. American Giant makes sure that everything in its clothing line is made domestically. The process starts with cotton grown and spun into yarn in the Carolinas. The head of American Giant, Bayard Winthrop, just doesn’t believe in delegating work. He himself gets involved in production intricacies and frequently inspects his units to see everything is going well. The sources for cotton and yarn are domestic, and the company’s dying and sewing work is also done in the US.

New approach

American Giant, established in 2011, has embraced the rebirth of the ‘Made in America’ movement. Trevor Little, an apparel technology management expert at North Carolina State University’s College of Textiles, has seen success come from the model American Giant is using. American Giant is looking at the whole cost and making smaller quantities and delivering quickly to consumers.

Similarly, Amazon too has its own line of products to compete with brands that are already on Amazon. So, competition is really heating up. On Amazon, one can find a wide variety of hoodies, in the range of $10 or $15. At the same time, American Giant believes that shoppers will continue to order its $89 classic full-zip cotton men’s hoodie. As far as the ‘focused line’ is concerned, the company makes only casual cotton clothes in mostly solid colors that are sold only online, with a lifetime guarantee and a higher price tag than your average chain store T-shirts and sweat pants.

Others follow similar approach

And it’s just not American Giant which is riding high on the domestic manufacturing, the workforce at Eagle Sportswear has almost doubled since it started sewing American Giant apparel, from 98 to nearly 200 workers. Brian Morrell, GM, Eagle Sportswear, says he didn’t want to make the American Giant line at first — too costly and too much needle work is involved but eventually changed his mind. But he continues to try and cut down on the amount of time it takes to make each hoodie. The company has increased efficiencies and changed some engineering. However, the fact is that US manufacturing companies are still figuring out how to make the best product in the least amount of time for an ever-changing consumer.