If you only know a little about our brand, you know we’re committed to making our product in the USA.  And although every product is made here, many of our fabrics come from other countries. 

There are two reasons we import fabrics:  either there’s no mill to buy from in the USA – or the American mill does not fit our needs.

Shirting Fabrics

You may find it hard to believe, that for a country our size, we do not have one mill that produces shirt fabric.  America has no shirting mills left.  We purchase our shirt fabrics from Portugal and Italy. 

Denim

The United States has four denim mills in operation.  We purchase from a family owned mill in Georgia, making specialty denim.  We believe it’s the best of the American mills, especially for our needs.

We also purchase denim from Japan and Italy.  The Japanese and Italians are widely regarded as the most advanced denim makers; these mills produce an artisan quality not yet matched by the American mills.  

Khakis

We’re aware of only two mills in the United States that make khaki fabric, and we purchase from one of them.  We also purchase khaki fabric from a mill in England. 

Wool Trouser Fabric

There’s only one mill in United States that makes wool trouser fabric, it’s an Italian owned mill located in Connecticut.  They make a luxury product; an excellent product.  We sampled their fabric, made some trousers and tested them.  Their fabrics have a sheen that works for their luxury aesthetic.  With a more grounded sensibility; the sheen does not match our style. 

We purchase trouser fabric from Germany and Italy.

T-Shirt Fabric

America still produces world-class knit fabrics.  The US manufacturing infrastructure for knit fabrics is still strong (relative to other fabrics); concentrated in the Carolina’s and Southern California.

We purchase t-shirt fabric knitted in North Carolina.  We use Supima cotton yarn, which is grown in the United States.   

There are good mills in the USA and abroad that we choose to not work with because their business philosophy is not in line with ours.  There are good mills in other countries that we choose to not buy from because their labor and environmental standards are not responsible from our viewpoint.

We’ve been testing fabrics from the best mills within the USA and internationally for several years now.  We have a good understanding of which mills produce the highest quality fabrics and which mills share our design aesthetic.  We’ve evaluated the business practices of these mills to ensure they meet our standards. 

Please know that our fabric has been thoroughly vetted for quality, design, and good karma.

Over the past year we’ve evaluated how we make our products – and we’re making some changes.  During the coming year, we’ll reveal what these changes will mean for the customer (mainly more fit options within a ‘stock/made to order’ hybrid inventory system). 

If you’re generally skeptical of change, don’t worry, these changes will be good for all of us, especially the customer.

In preparation for these changes, we’ve moved.  Our Jersey City space was not fit for our new system.  We’re now located in an industrial space in East Rutherford, NJ.  It’s concrete floors, cinder block walls, high ceilings – we like the space. 

We’re right behind the new Giant Stadium in the Meadowlands.  For those not familiar with northern New Jersey, the Meadowlands are where the New York Giants and New York Jets share a stadium.  The New Jersey Nets play in IZOD Arena, in the same Meadowlands complex. 

We’re 10 miles from mid-town Manhattan, via the Lincoln Tunnel.

Imported Pricing vs American Made Pricing
The largest driver of our pricing is USA labor.  Compared to what our competitors pay for overseas labor, the cost of making a product in America is staggering; doubling the retail price of a garment.

We know first-hand the differences in cost between imported and American made clothing.  We started out importing our product, and our prices were less than half of what they are today.

If you were to compare Todd Shelton costs to good department stores brands – you’d find that we pay more for one yard of t-shirt fabric knitted in the USA, than they pay for the entire finished imported t-shirt.  Our finished t-shirt will cost us five times what these importers will pay.

This example not only applies to t-shirts, it’s the same relationship for all garments.

The Cost of Making in America

The shops that we work with here in the United States (their owners and employees), merely make their ends meet; none that we know of are flourishing financially.

American apparel manufacturing has been squeezed so hard from low-cost foreign competition, there’s no excess.  Apparel manufacturing wages are among the lowest in American manufacturing.  It’s simply about survival for these American manufacturing shops.

If one were to think the cost to produce in the USA was unreasonably high, it would not only be wrong – it would be unfair.  The cost of doing business, labor laws, and environmental laws in these foreign countries, are incomparable to that of the United States.

Todd Shelton Compared to Good Department Store Brands

We could reduce our prices to be more competitive with good department brands, if we used a lesser cost, lesser quality fabric.  However, we pay a premium to have a product cut and sewn in the United States, it would be a shame to dumb-down the product with a low cost, low quality fabric.  We carefully select fabrics from the best mills internationally, and we pay a premium for them, three to four times that of merely adequate fabrics.

Todd Shelton Compared to Higher Priced Brands

One of the simplest ways consumers gauge quality is price; the higher the price, the better the quality.

However, we would put any of our products in a ‘quality competition’ with any brand.  The most successful brands, the highest priced brands, the brands that get the best press; none are “better” than the Todd Shelton brand.

If you compare a Todd Shelton product at $120 to the same type of product at $180 or more in a retail store, the difference in price is not quality related.  The difference in price is retail markup.

We choose to sell directly to you, bypassing the traditional wholesale/retail channel.  If we wholesaled our product to retail stores, our prices would double.  If we operated retail stores, incurring the property and staff costs of a store, our prices would increase.

Selling direct enables us to keep high-quality clothing priced as reasonably as possible.  Additionally, selling direct is the only way we can make our product in the USA and price it within reach of the average American.

In Conclusion

We challenge you to find a brand that produces a line of clothing of the same quality, exclusively in the USA, at a lower price.  We know our prices are higher than some widely distributed brands, but we’ve done everything possible to keep our pricing as low as possible while still making a world-class product.

Our intent is to simply have the resources to continue to deliver you high-quality product, service and content consistently.  With our previous pricing, we were coming up short.

We make a tailored product in the USA (the labor costs alone here can be 300% or more of an entire imported garment), we use world-class fabrics from Europe and Japan, and we provide personal customer service; this combination of product and service is atypical when compared to our competitors.

We’re very sensitive to prices and have always tried to keep our pricing as accessible as possible.  We never wanted to create an exclusively priced product.

We have not raised prices in over five years; yet during this time we’ve seen the cost of production, the cost of cotton, and our operating expenses increase considerably.

We do not know of another brand that makes a line of high-quality clothing exclusively in
the USA, exclusively from American, European and Japanese fabrics, and sells it exclusively direct to their customers (no wholesale programs).

We’re certain that if were to wholesale Todd Shelton to retail stores, our prices would
nearly double.  By eliminating retail markup and the costs associated with a retail store operation, we’re able keep USA made clothing priced as reasonable as possible.

We’re confident in the quality/value proposition we provide you.  We appreciate your understanding and continued support.

We began working on this redesign at the end of 2009.  We thought it would take a year to complete, it took nearly two.  Admittedly, we were super particular about little details, which extended the project.

We started by adhering to the same design principles we use with clothing:  simplicity, the use of well-accepted design standards, and the resistance of trends that would date the sites design.

No pretention; just a basic platform to deliver photography and text with as little noise as
possible – minimal artwork and minimal graphics, simple black and white.

We spent most of our design efforts on proportion; the space relation between the content (images and text).  If you notice any design element from this site, we hope you’d notice the juxtaposition of the content; easy to look at, easy to understand, and easy to read.

We added new functionality.  You now have the ability to be ‘notified’ when an out of stock product becomes available.  You can request fabric swatches straight from the product page.  The new functionality is focused on making relevant product information easier to find and access.

A large emphasis going forward will be on delivering meaningful content through our blog.  Links from the home page and shopping pages to blog information should keep you up to date with what is happening at the brand and help with purchasing and style decisions.

We hope you’ll enjoy using the new site.  Although the content will evolve, this new platform will be our home for the next couple of years.

Special appreciation to the Dizzain design team (they built the site), they’ve been a part of the Todd Shelton brand for over five years, and will continue to be indefinitely.

Listen to the recording

The growing pains were created by inventory and production issues.  Many times throughout the year we had to tell our customers that we were temporarily sold out (we couldn’t ship right away).  We’d do our best to explain the situation and ask them to please hang in there with us.  They did. 

It was tricky for us to anticipate how much inventory we needed this year (we were uncertain to how the brand would grow).  And after customer support gave us the confidence to build inventory, then production issues surfaced.

Designing and making clothing in the United States isn’t as simple as calling for “300 more pieces” and having it delivered two weeks later.  It takes months.  Our countries garment manufacturing supply chain has been so beaten up over the years, reaction times require patience.     

Another unforeseen production challenge was ensuring all of our manufacturers were onboard with our brands future.  Although we look to build relationships with manufacturers that last for decades, we moved away from two manufacturers this year (only after much thought and many attempts to improve situations). 

Getting our new manufacturers making the type of product we need took longer than expected, which created longer delays for our customers.

There were painful challenges this year that we (regretfully) shared with our customers – but somehow they seemed to understand our challenges and still had the desire to support what we can become.  It’s been rewarding to work for people (our customers) who share the philosophy of treating people (or a brand) the way you’d like to be treated.

Is every issue behind us?  Maybe not.  But if and as issues arise, we fix them and put measures in place so they’re likely to not resurface.  Our brand is moving in a good direction.

 2010 was a year that we “set the stage” for our future in regards to our philosophies, business practices and production partnerships.  But it was the respect shown to us by our customers that will undoubtedly shape this brands culture.

The new site will be our home for the next two years.  It will be the platform in which we communicate with you and you with us.

I’m confident our customers who understand the brand will endorse the new site.  It’s authentic Todd Shelton: clean, without any extraneous “cool” elements. That’s our design philosophy in clothes, and we think you’ll see it in the new site. 

At the beginning of the design process, I spoke via email with a friend of the brand about the redesign and the challenge to build in the brand’s design aesthetic.  During an awesome email exchange, he wrote this paragraph:

“I think that most people, trained or not, will never really understand the sheer difficulty of trying to create something with less and infuse it with more. It’s an easy road to take to pile on more, more, more – like throwing money at a problem that won’t end. But in the end, it takes a finer talent to really craft and hone and reduce something to its core essence and create something that blows away everything else. The creative version of an indie shoestring flick dominating box office over a major studio release.”

Although we may not “blow away everything else,” we certainly wanted to create a site that we felt was more meaningful than the other choices you have available.

So when will the new site replace the current site?

The backend (the brains) of the new site is now under construction; it will be complete late November.  I will then begin loading new content.  Since the bustle of the Holiday season will slow things, I project a mid-January launch.

I hope you’re excited about it, I am.

For years I’ve been building this brand in relative obscurity; with unusual patience, mainly by myself to minimize debt — focused almost completely on the product and the brand’s philosophies.  

When the brand really began to grow a year ago (we started seven years prior), I had to make a decision: continue to grow the brand organically – or take financing and accelerate the growth. 

I chose to continue growing organically.  The upside to this strategy was making sure the brand’s infrastructure was grounded without the burden of debt.  The downside was that I couldn’t do all the things I had envisioned quickly – I had to be patient.      

It was a non-glamorous strategy that I still sometimes question when I see other designers getting press and winning awards.  But when I see those same designers going bankrupt or having to sell a controlling interest to an investor, I feel good about the decision. 

Over the next year, much will happen with our brand.  A move to a new city is likely.  A new person or two will come on board.  We’ll take the next steps, but we’ll stay true to our cautious growth philosophy. 

And this is why I write this article.

There are times when I worry that customers come to the site and don’t see new products and new content updated as often as they’d expect. 

As our brand grows and its’ resources become greater, new content will be more consistent.  What you’ve been seeing on the site just touches on what we plan to deliver to you in the future. 

Please be patient and stay in touch with us frequently.  We’re going to build a brand you are proud to have supported and proud to be affiliated with. 

And we’re going to build it in a way that ensures we’ll be around for decades.

More than any other, sweaters fall into this “difficult to produce in America” category.  Machines make sweaters today, and most of those machines are in Asia – American manufacturers have been unable to invest in such machines (an example of outsourcing’s effect).  

In the United States, there are two shops that have these sweater-making machines. The challenge with these shops is price. Despite relatively low demand, lack of competition means that if we make our sweater in either of these shops, it will retail just below $200. That’s not much for some, but not everyone wants to pay $200 for a sweater, and we’re sensitive to that too.  

So how else can we still make in the US?  The other option is a “Cut & Sew” sweater. The challenge for Cut & Sew sweaters is that while their seams are stronger than machine-knit sweaters, some may think they’re not as “refined” (because the seam is not as flat/smooth).

I was speaking to a friend of mine (her profession is sweaters) recently, communicating my concern about “Cut & Sew” seams. She said, “but that’s what an American-made sweater is…”.   And as she said it, I realized: she’s right, it’s about craftsmanship and heritage.

My coming to terms with how this sweater should be constructed and a lengthy sampling process delayed our sweater launch.  But it’s my responsibility as a designer to ask every question I can before releasing a product.

We’re moving forward with “Cut & Sew”.  Look for our sweater in early 2011.