The Halifax White represents the next step in our efforts to get back to basics. To get more local. To get closer to the people that make the things we love. We believe proximity is better. It drives quality, relationships, and transparency. It makes our communities stronger because we know where our dollars are going and the people they are supporting. It makes us far better stewards of the planet.
Working in close partnership with Parkdale Mills, we asked whether we could source yarn spun from cotton from a specific region, or even a specific county. And in so doing, minimize the movement of raw materials and directly support individual farms in the neighborhood we operate. They believed we could. And together, we did.
Halifax County, North Carolina sits about 40 miles northeast of where we sew our sweatshirts. It is one of the most productive cotton regions in the United States. Marked by beautiful, rolling Carolina hills and checkered with acres of peanuts and cotton grown by hard-working farmers. And, like all cotton farms across the United States, the cotton produced in Halifax is held to the highest environmental standards in the world and is among the finest fiber on the market.
Over the last few months, we committed to making a product that represented the latest chapter in our efforts to get even closer. In the hope that it would become a beacon to guide us forward. This sweatshirt supports the cotton farmers in the rural communities around which we operate. They are the anchors of these communities and our neighbors. We want to support them.
Additionally, the cotton in the Halifax White travels a supply chain that is, in total, less than 800 miles. That is 300 miles less than our typical Classic Full Zip, and a far cry from the more than 19,000 miles a typical sweatshirt travels these days.
300 miles may not seem like much, but to us it represents a breakthrough. An example of how we can continue to get even better as an apparel manufacturer. It is through steps like this, both big and small, that we can begin to change an industry and give us all a better chance to support the values we care about and the people who keep our communities strong.
CLOSER. BETTER.
Only 3% of garments are made in the USA today. And the typical sweatshirt is made by a complicated, globalized supply chain. By the time it gets to the store where you bought it, it’s traveled an average of 19,884 miles through multiple countries on a handful of container ships burning dirty, low grade fuel oil. 60% of these sweatshirts will end up in incinerators or landfills within a year.
Our Halifax White sweatshirt stands in stark contrast. From yarn spinning all the way to our distribution center in Kentucky, it traveled 759 miles, across 5 states. No container ships needed. That’s 19,126 fewer miles. And like all our sweatshirts, you can count on it to last much longer than a year.
We make our clothes locally because closer is better.
