How to Make a $12.98 T-Shirt... in the U.S.
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What makes a $12.98 T-shirt special?
My colleague Suzanne Kappner covers retail, and recently she wrote about one particular shirt sold at Walmart. It showed up in stores last summer for the Fourth of July. Can you describe the shirt?
Sure. It's a 100% cotton t-shirt. It has the words American Made on the front, and there's a little American flag patch near the hem on the bottom.
At first glance, it looks like any other patriotic T-shirt. What stood out to Suzanne, though, were two things. First, the shirt's price, $12.98. And second, its origins.
What's remarkable is that it was entirely made in the United States. The cotton was grown here. It was ginned. It was dyed. It was sewn all in the U.S.
Is that unusual to see an inexpensive item of clothing made in America? It is very unusual these days, yes. There's been a lot of talk about trying to move more manufacturing back to the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has proposed sweeping policy changes to try to make that happen. Everything from 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada to upending trade deals.
Why is American-made clothing unusual today?
But getting more things made here can be complicated. And no one knows that better than the guy who got that T-shirt on the rack in the first place. Did you think that you would make a T-shirt in America that sells for $13?
If you'd asked me that a year and a half ago, I would have said, no way.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, January 3rd. Coming up on the show, how one company made an affordable T-shirt in the USA. The guy who made that shirt at Walmart is Bayard Winthrop.
What challenges exist in U.S. clothing manufacturing?
My name is Bayard Winthrop, and I'm the founder of American Giant.
And what is American Giant?
We are an entirely made-in-America clothing company that started about 12 years ago. And we're primarily online, though we've got six retail stores, but primarily a direct-to-consumer e-commerce business.
American Giant sells sweatshirts, sweatpants, and other basics. And they make them in the U.S. using American cotton and American labor. You are wearing a sweatshirt right now.
I am.
Is that by any chance an American Giant sweatshirt?
I'm typically dressed head to toe in American Giant as I am today, except for my shoes and my underwear. So everything else I have on my body is American Giant.
Chances are, if you check out what you're wearing right now, it wasn't made in the U.S. My shirt was made in Indonesia and my pants were made in Vietnam. But that wasn't always the case. According to one industry group, back in the 1960s, about 95% of the clothes Americans bought were American-made. The U.S. was a powerhouse when it came to knitwear, flannel, and of course, those iconic blue jeans. But it didn't stay that way. Here's Suzanne again.
It started changing gradually in the 70s, 80s. You know, companies began outsourcing to places like China, where the cost of manufacturing was much, much less expensive. And then we had other things like NAFTA, which opened the borders and allowed for, you know, free trade. And so manufacturing just began migrating to other countries outside the U.S.
In 2023, less than 4% of the clothes Americans bought were made here.
We had whole communities in the south, you know, southeast especially, that were manufacturing towns where generations of families worked at the same mills for decades. And these businesses have closed over the years and a lot of people found themselves unemployed. They had to maybe go work in fast food restaurants and other industries that didn't pay as much, didn't have regular hours. It kind of decimated a lot of these communities.
Those job losses bothered Bayard, the founder of American Giant. Before he started his business, Bayard worked at sportswear and footwear companies that had outsourced production. And he felt like there had to be a better way.
American Giant came out of what had become, I think, a growing frustration of mine, both in terms of my disconnection from the product that I was making and getting further and further away from the men and women that made it.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What makes a $12.98 T-shirt special?
0:05–1:24
2
Why is American-made clothing unusual today?
1:24–2:24
3
What challenges exist in U.S. clothing manufacturing?
2:24–5:26
4
How did American Giant come to be?
5:26–8:02
5
What is the process of making a T-shirt in the U.S.?
8:02–9:20
6
Why did Bayard Winthrop choose sweatshirts and T-shirts?
9:20–12:41
7
What steps are involved in building a supply chain for clothing?
12:41–16:33