American Giant: Successful American Manufacturing

Clothing retailers think they can save a lot of money by manufacturing clothes overseas. However, Bayard Winthrop, CEO of American Giant, disagrees. Winthrop insists that American manufacturing isn't dead. In fact, he believes that there are many advantages to making products in the United States. Ignoring the abundance of manufacturing tips saying it's cheaper to make clothing items in Asia, Winthrop set out to prove that high-quality clothing can be manufacturing in United States without costing hundreds of dollars per garment. So far, American Giant seems to be succeeding. However experts in the manufacturing industry are still skeptical that the company's success will last.

Bayard Winthrop, a 44-year-old resident of San Francisco, started American Giant with one simple goal in mind—to make the perfect hoodie and manufacture it in the United States. It took Winthrop eight months and dozens of prototypes before he decided on a sweatshirt design. He wanted people to be able to touch his sweatshirts and immediately be able to tell that they were holding a high-quality product. According to Farhead Manjoo's review on Slate.com, which dubbed American Giant's sweatshirt the greatest sweatshirt ever made, Winthrop is succeeding. After Manjoo's outstanding review, American Giant went viral, and the only problem the company had was keeping up with consumer demands.

Even though, American Giant had more orders than it could fill, Winthrop's dedication to the American manufacturing industry remained. Instead of giving in and following popular manufacturing tips that indicating he should contract with overseas company capable of handling a large volume of orders, Winthrop continued to slowly increase American Giant's production. Last month, the company announced that after nine months of working to expand production, the thousands of sweatshirts on backorder are being shipped and customers can now order a sweatshirt online and expect to have it shipped within days.

This is a success for American Giant and the entire American manufacturing industry. Winthrop's positive attitude about American manufacturing is becoming a trend among retailers. Many experts are predicting that the American manufacturing industry will make a comeback by the end of the decade. There are numerous forces driving these opinions. The costs of labor rising in China, and the costs of labor, electricity, and natural gas are now lower in the United States. It's also more expensive to have products shipped from abroad, and industrial land is cheaper in the United States than it is in China's port cities.

Regardless of expert opinion, the fact that American Giant was able to expand production enough to meet consumer demands without outsourcing the work to other countries is a huge success for the American manufacturing industry. It's a good sign that the industry will continue to flourish, creating much-needed jobs throughout the country.

(Photo courtesy of foto76 / freedigitalphotos.net)