{"id":1633,"date":"2017-10-19T11:47:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T15:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2017-10-19T11:47:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T15:47:30","slug":"the-last-selvedge-denim-mill-in-the-u-s-is-closing-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2017\/10\/the-last-selvedge-denim-mill-in-the-u-s-is-closing-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Selvedge Denim Mill in the U.S. is Closing #America"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cone Mills plant in Greensboro, N.C. has been continuously weaving denim since 1905, and is currently the only U.S. plant producing selvedge denim.\u00a0 They’re calling it quits at the end of this year.<\/p>\n

“Selvedge<\/a>” is a specific style of denim produced in broad strips on relatively narrow shuttle looms using a continuous weft\u00a0such that the edge is automatically finished\u2014i.e., it produces a “self-edged” bolt of fabric that won’t unravel\u00a0(if you’re looking at denim and the edge of the seam is white with a single thread of color\u2014often red\u2014then you’re looking at selvedge denim).\u00a0\u00a0Because it’s produced in narrower strips on shuttle looms (and\u00a0usually with un-dyed weft), the fabric has certain characteristics in how it breaks in and ages, both in terms of fit and coloration.\u00a0\u00a0Some folks\u00a0dig these.\u00a0 Other folks just dig putting their money where their mouth is, in terms of “Buying American.”\u00a0 I kinda like to do both, so I’m kinda bummed that Cone Mills is rolling up.\u00a0 Certainly the generations of weavers in Greensboro are bummed.<\/p>\n

By the end of this year, you’ll only be able to get this\u00a0prototypically American fabric from Japan.\u00a0 That’s still great selvedge (hell, it’s made on American machines: Japan bought them up in the 1980s when Levi’s et al.<\/em> made the shift\u00a0to larger looms), but it’s a bummer that this once uniquely American product is going extinct.<\/p>\n

The only upside:\u00a0 When you see some Stars-and-Bars waving asshole in blue jeans popping off about “foreign manufacturing” next year, you’ll know he’s wearing jeans from Vietnam, and thus can go fuck himself. He didn’t put his money where his mouth was, and subsequently American selvedge denim died.\u00a0 That’s how economies work. Way to “Make America Great Again,” bro.<\/p>\n

Anyway,\u00a0if you’ve been thinking about getting into high-quality American-made denim, it’s sorta now or never.\u00a0 Brave Star<\/a>\u00a0is my go-to company on this: Incredibly reasonable prices given the quality, nice cuts, excellent craftsmanship, solid customer service, 100% American made: The denim is from N.C., the hardware from KY, the cutting\u00a0and sewing in California.<\/p>\n

\"usa-american-flag-waving-animated-gif-26\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cone Mills plant in Greensboro, N.C. has been continuously weaving denim since 1905, and is currently the only U.S. plant producing selvedge denim.\u00a0 They’re calling it quits at the end of this year. “Selvedge” is a specific style of denim produced in broad strips on relatively narrow shuttle looms using a continuous weft\u00a0such that … Continue reading “The Last Selvedge Denim Mill in the U.S. is Closing #America”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11,153],"tags":[175,176,172,171,170,36,53,173,174],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}