Made from 100% cotton, priced at $12.98, and screen printed with the words “AMERICAN MADE” across the chest, the American Giant Unisex Made in America Tee looks at a glance like the kind of patriotic merch you’d find at countless big box stores, gas stations, and drug stores across the country. Unlike 99% of those T-shirts, however, this one actually is made in America. It represents the latest chapter in a decades-long effort by a handful of brands to breathe life back into the American garment industry and spread the gospel of high-quality cotton jersey tees in the process.
A T-shirt is one of the simplest and most ubiquitous pieces of clothing in the world, but like many apparently simple things, it turns out to be incredibly complicated, especially if you’re set on making it entirely in the United States. For one thing, after decades of offshoring by fashion brands in search of ever-cheaper labor, the factories and workers who once made everything from athletic socks to winter coats in factories across the United States simply aren’t there anymore. For another, thanks to lower labor costs and fewer regulations abroad, it’s far cheaper to make a T-shirt in Bangladesh or Vietnam than in the US. That’s one reason why a 6-pack of Kirkland Signature white tees costs $34 while a single American-made Buck Mason Pima Classic tee costs $45. For the companies that make T-shirts in America, however, not to mention the legion of T-shirt devotees who swear by their meticulously dialed-in fit, drape and quality, the provenance can be worth the price.
“We believe that the best way to build and grow something is to have your hands in the dirt,” says Kyle Fitzgibbons, Chief Creative Officer at Buck Mason, which recently launched its first-ever 100% American-made T-shirt, the Toughknit. “We started that process four or five years ago, getting to know the farms where our cotton came from, and looking into building a T-shirt factory.” The Toughknit is the next phase of that effort, and is woven, cut and sewn at Buck Mason Knitting Mills, a formerly-shuttered factory in Mohnton, Pennsylvania that the brand re-opened last year.
While not Buck Mason’s first tee to be knit, cut, and sewn in Mohnton, the Toughknit is the first one to use American-spun yarn. It may seem like a small distinction, but for a brand founded on the mission of creating the world’s best tees, bringing production entirely onshore opens up a whole new world of possibilities. “It’s like the In ‘n Out secret menu,” Fitzgibbon says. “We thought the menu was much smaller because for our entire careers we had worked with yarn, spinners, converters, and knitters, and they always gave us, like, three options of what we could do. What we started to realize when we bought our own factory and bought our own machines is that the menu is far larger than we thought.”
Buck Mason isn’t the only T-shirt specialist that prefers onshore production. Lady White launched in 2015 with a singular focus on white jersey tees and now produces a range of cult-favorite shirts like their flagship LW101 at factories within a ten-mile radius of the company headquarters in Los Angeles. Denim specialist 3sixteen started making its similarly-beloved tees at a factory in China, but the brand’s efforts were hampered by the difficulty of making production tweaks from thousands of miles away. As a result, 3sixteen moved production to the same downtown San Francisco factory that produces its jeans, where proximity to its Los Angeles headquarters makes it easier to oversee production. Both brands share a similar obsession with the minutiae of creating the ultimate tee, from the yarn to the knitting machines to the stitching on the collar, but these efforts don’t come cheap. While a growing legion of fans are happy to pay $50 for a great T-shirt, the cost of making clothes in the USA puts them out of reach for most Americans.
