(C) ShareAmerica
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Blue jeans are all-American again [1]
['Charles Hoskinson']
Date: 2025-05-15 18:28:25+00:00
The iconic blue jeans that help define America’s youthful image — derived from such cultural touchstones as movie star James Dean’s rebellious attire or rock ‘n’ roll musician Bruce Springsteen’s album covers — are once again being made in the USA.
American workers wore blue jeans as far back as 1873, when San Francisco shopkeeper Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis, of Reno, Nevada, stitched work pants with denim held together by strong copper rivets. These pants — at first worn as overalls to stand up to the dirt and grime of mines — became popular in the 20th century among teenagers, Hollywood stars and, eventually, even presidents.
The world’s love affair with the fashion turned blue jeans into a $65 billion global market, with 3 billion pairs sold worldwide in 2022, according to the business data site Statista.
But by the early 2000s, U.S. factories that had produced millions of pairs of blue jeans were closing because they could not compete with low labor costs overseas.
A new breed of pioneers is bringing production back. In 2012, Pete Roberts founded Farmington, Maine, apparel company Origin, with the belief that American-made blue jeans could be profitably made there. “We have to be able to make things in America today,” Roberts says.
Origin is one of two dozen companies producing blue jeans in the United States, and among those competing with imports on price. It salvaged old looms, retrofitted factories and trained American workers in a nearly forgotten craft. “We were right on the verge of losing all the knowledge,” Roberts says.
The company has grown to 400 employees and sells 150,000 pairs of blue jeans online each year.
The United States (population 330 million) offers apparel makers access to a strong consumer market and abundant natural resources.
Communities win too, as blue jeans manufacturers create jobs and return tax revenues to fund schools and police and fire departments, says BJ Nickol, marketing director of the All-American Clothing Company, founded by his father, Lawson Nickol, in 2002. Headquartered in Arcanum, Ohio, All-American makes jeans at facilities in Illinois, California, Texas and Kentucky.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, “’Made in America’ is not just a tagline — it’s an economic and national security priority.”
Dearborn Denim, a Chicago company founded in 2016, proves his point.
Because it owned an apparel-making facility, it shifted to making masks for hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic … and helped to protect countless American health workers. Now, its focus is back on making blue jeans, which sell at a starting price of $59, matching the average price of imported products.
To keep prices low, Dearborn Denim founder Rob McMillan says, the company cross-trains employees and relies as much as possible on local supply chains. That reduces shipping costs and truck emissions — and supports local jobs. When the company sources some materials from elsewhere (for instance, denim from South Carolina or Mexico), it hires independent verifiers to ensure quality and fair working conditions.
Some other domestic blue jeans producers also forge international connections. New Jersey–based Todd Shelton fashions high-end jeans from Japanese and Italian denim. And Round House Jeans, the United States’ oldest domestic manufacturer of blue jeans, which opened in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1903, enjoys exporting the popular pants to Asia, Australia and Europe.
Alongside the likes of Round House, these newer jeans makers are helping to reestablish a robust U.S. industry that can buoy local economies. We’re “manufacturing in Chicago. We’re paying fair wages, [offering] good working conditions and creating jobs domestically,” McMillan told Fox Business Network, a financial news television channel.
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