AMERICAN FLANNEL

A New York Times fashion reporter digs into the economics of manufacturing clothing—and why so much of it is trash.

“Clothing is a basic human need,” writes Kurutz of the decline of American clothing manufacturing. “What did it mean for a nation to lose the ability to make it on any scale?” Textiles had long ago moved to the South from New England to chase cheap labor; now they travel across oceans. Kurutz, the author of Like a Rolling Stone, surveys that economic history before settling on a few people determined to restore the “Made in America” label, such as an Alabama woman working to remake her hometown as the sock capital of America, as it once was before George W. Bush signed a law allowing “socks made from U.S.-spun yarn [to] be sent to Honduras or another low-cost country to have the toes sewn shut, then shipped back to America duty-free.” The flannel maker of the title chased after a shirt of the quality he’d worn as a teenager, nursing “a desire for timeless quality in a disposable culture.” Talk about a white whale: That excellent shirt had been offshored, and what came back was guaranteed to fall apart after a few washings, whether it was a big-box house brand or a boutique name. The flannel fan pressed on, founding a product line limited to a few classic items: flannel shirts, sweatshirts, and T-shirts. Labor costs added to the price tag—but so, too, did recovering lost knowledge, and then there was the problem of right-wingers seizing the “Made in the U.S.A.” slogan as political currency. Kurutz’s well-crafted story is one of makers defying the odds, as well as lessons in the many harms of throwaway culture.

Guaranteed to be of interest to anyone who appreciates bespoke and well-made goods, as well as artisan pride.