{"id":9484,"date":"2018-12-13T23:33:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T06:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=9484"},"modified":"2018-12-16T23:42:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-17T06:42:06","slug":"saving-flannel-shout-out-james-mckinnon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/13\/saving-flannel-shout-out-james-mckinnon\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Flannel (Shout-out James McKinnon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

from, The New York Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Annals of Flannel<\/span><\/h1>\n

Told that the cozy shirting fabric could no longer be made in America, one man began a yearlong quest.<\/p>\n

By Steven Kurutz<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Boxes proudly proclaim the product\u2019s origin.<\/span>Credit<\/span>American Giant<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Three years ago, Bayard Winthrop, the chief executive and founder of the clothing brand American Giant<\/a>, started thinking about a flannel shirt he wore as a kid in the 1970s. It was blue plaid and bought for him by his grandmother, probably at Caldor, a discount department store popular in the northeast back then. The flannel was one of the first pieces of clothing Mr. Winthrop owned that suggested a personality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it looked great,\u201d he said, \u201cand I thought it said something about me. That I was cool and physical and capable and outdoorsy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2011 American Giant, or AG, has mass-produced everyday sportswear for men and women, like the Lee jeans or Russell sweatshirts once sold in stores like Caldor \u2014 from the ginned cotton to the cutting and sewing \u2014 entirely in the U.S. Mr. Winthrop, a former financier who had run a snowshoe firm, made it the company\u2019s mission to, in his words, \u201cbring back ingenuity and optimism to the towns that make things.\u201d He\u2019s been very successful, especially with a full-zip sweatshirt Slate called \u201cthe greatest hoodie ever made<\/a>.\u201d AG has introduced denim, leggings and socks, among other products.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Winthrop\u2019s madeleine of a garment proved elusive. \u201cWe kept asking around and hearing, \u2018Not flannel. You can do all these other things here, maybe. Flannel is gone.\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bringing its manufacture back to America, Mr. Winthrop thought, could be deeply symbolic. Both of the capability of U.S. manufacturing and of the need for big fashion brands to invest<\/a> here again. It was a quixotic artisanal project, perhaps, but one with potentially high business stakes.<\/p>\n

Each time AG develops a new product, Mr. Winthrop must patch together its supply chain from what remains. To help him navigate the process, he relies on \u201cold dogs in the industry,\u201d he said, though AG is based in San Francisco and runs like a tech start-up, with sales almost entirely online.<\/p>\n

For flannel, he called James McKinnon.<\/p>\n

At 50, Mr. McKinnon is not that old (Mr. Winthrop is 49). But he is the third McKinnon to run Cotswold Industries<\/a>, the textile manufacturer his grandfather started in 1954. Cotswold made the woven fabric for headliners inside Ford cars. Later, the firm manufactured pocket linings for Lee, Wrangler and Levi jeans. Cotswold still handles pocketing business for many U.S. brands, part of a diverse portfolio that includes making fabrics for culinary apparel. The fabrics are woven at its mill in Central, S.C.<\/p>\n

Mr. Winthrop called Mr. McKinnon at his office in midtown Manhattan and ran through the list of questions. Why is flannel gone? What would it take to bring it back? How would you do it?<\/p>\n

[ click to read full article at NYT<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from, The New York Times The Annals of Flannel Told that the cozy shirting fabric could no longer be made in America, one man began a yearlong quest. By Steven Kurutz Boxes proudly proclaim the product\u2019s origin.CreditAmerican Giant Three years ago, Bayard Winthrop, the chief executive and founder of the clothing brand American Giant, started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}