Letters
The man in Trader Joe's
03/17/2026
I saw a man in Trader Joe's the other night.
He was it.
Mid-sixties, maybe. Solid, looked capable. All-cotton jeans, brown leather boots. His jeans didn't fall perfectly over his boots. His button-up shirt was tucked in, but not perfectly. His green cotton jacket was nice enough — had a vintage army vibe.
He had a small red basket. He wasn't walking the store in a grid looking at products. He was walking exactly toward what he was there for.
He looked different from every other man in that store.
Everyone else was wearing stretch jeans and some form of modern sneaker. Sweatpants and hoodies. Athleisure. Performance fabrics. The uniform of the last fifteen years.
Not him.
He wasn't making a statement. He wasn't opting out of anything. He wasn't thinking about authenticity.
He just never converted.
While the rest of the world switched to stretch and synthetics, he kept wearing what he'd always worn. Cotton. Leather. Simple, permanent things. Not because he was resisting.
But because he never saw a reason to change.
That's the most dignified thing I've seen in a long time.
He's a survivor of something that's mostly gone. And he doesn't even know it.
He's the standard.
The story of the 3-hole button
03/7/2026
In 2012, we bought our first sewing machine for $1,200. It was a used Juki LK-1900, purchased from the New York Sewing Machine Company in North Bergen, NJ. We used that machine every day for twelve years.
When we retired the machine in 2024, Robert Ross—one of the last true sewing machine specialists in America—was at our factory. He noticed a small nameplate on the side of the machine.
It read: Property of C.F. Hathaway & Co.
Robert told us he had worked in a Hathaway factory decades ago. He explained that Hathaway was known for a specific, rare detail: the 3-hole button. They were so protective of the design that they famously threatened to sue any competitor who tried to use it.
C.F. Hathaway, once a titan of American shirtmaking, closed in 2002. With their closing, the 3-hole button largely disappeared.
Hathaway stood for a specific level of manufacturing expertise. Their hallmark was the 3-hole button: a purist’s detail that was visually distinct, but difficult to mass-produce.
Inspired by the history, we contacted our button supplier in Portugal. We asked if they could help us bring this lost standard back.
Today, we're introducing the 3-hole mother of pearl buttons to our shirt collection.
Mother of Pearl is carved from oyster shells. While the front is polished, the back side reveals the "bark" of the shell. These iridescent swirls of silver, green, and pink are the fingerprint of the ocean. No two buttons are the same.
The 3-hole button is a small detail, but it represents the history of American design and the manufacturing standards we strive to protect.