American flannel How a band of entrepreneurs are bringing the art and business of making clothes back home

A "Made in the USA" label on a garment can be misleading, with parts of the product having been manufactured overseas. In the last four decades, clothing manufacturers' outsourcing to China and other countries has lowered costs, boosted profits, and vastly shrunk the once-thriving U.S. industry stateside. More recently though, intrepid entrepreneurs have attempted to reverse this trend. Bayard Winthrop felt an emotional connection with a comfortable, long-lasting flannel shirt from his youth. He drew on this appreciation for quality and his desire for fulfillment in his work to found sportswear company American Giant in 2011. Contemporaries like Gina Locklear (who founded Zkano socks) and Mike Rancourt (of shoe manufacturer Rancourt & Co.) share Winthrop's esprit de corps. Kurutz (Like a Rolling Stone, 2011) brings readers on an engrossing cross-country tour of business owners who are working to reinvigorate a flagging industry. In his excellent telling, the triumphs and setbacks of this crop of industry pioneers will leave a lasting impact while instilling hope for the future.

New York Times journalist Kurutz (Like a Rolling Stone) details in this encouraging report the efforts of entrepreneurs working to bring clothing manufacturing back to the U.S. The percentage of domestically produced clothes in Americans' wardrobes has fallen from 70% in 1980 to 2% today, Kurutz notes. Profiles of individuals attempting to reverse this trend include Bayard Winthrop, who launched the company American Giant in 2012 after becoming disillusioned with the shoddy workmanship he saw in products outsourced to China, and Gina Locklear, who earned the nickname "Sock Queen of Alabama" by transforming her family's north Alabama knitting operation into the organic sock brand Zkano. Exploring the factors that hollowed out American textile manufacturing, Kurutz details how free trade policies, beginning with NAFTA in 1993, eliminated or reduced tariffs on foreign products, igniting a race within the apparel industry to move factories to countries with the cheapest labor. The profiles humanize the machinations of the clothing market, finding in the entrepreneurs' plights an all-American tale of resilience and self-sufficiency in the face of steep odds. Readers will be inspired to look for the Made in America label. Agent: P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Mar.)

A New York Times fashion reporter digs into the economics of manufacturing clothing--and why so much of it is trash. "Clothing is a basic human need," writes Kurutz of the decline of American clothing manufacturing. "What did it mean for a nation to lose the ability to make it on any scale?" Textiles had long ago moved to the South from New England to chase cheap labor; now they travel across oceans. Kurutz, the author of Like a Rolling Stone, surveys that economic history before settling on a few people determined to restore the "Made in America" label, such as an Alabama woman working to remake her hometown as the sock capital of America, as it once was before George W. Bush signed a law allowing "socks made from U.S.-spun yarn [to] be sent to Honduras or another low-cost country to have the toes sewn shut, then shipped back to America duty-free." The flannel maker of the title chased after a shirt of the quality he'd worn as a teenager, nursing "a desire for timeless quality in a disposable culture." Talk about a white whale: That excellent shirt had been offshored, and what came back was guaranteed to fall apart after a few washings, whether it was a big-box house brand or a boutique name. The flannel fan pressed on, founding a product line limited to a few classic items: flannel shirts, sweatshirts, and T-shirts. Labor costs added to the price tag--but so, too, did recovering lost knowledge, and then there was the problem of right-wingers seizing the "Made in the U.S.A." slogan as political currency. Kurutz's well-crafted story is one of makers defying the odds, as well as lessons in the many harms of throwaway culture. Guaranteed to be of interest to anyone who appreciates bespoke and well-made goods, as well as artisan pride. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.