As we release our latest MiUSA goods, I feel it is important for me to get on here and explain the importance of this project, and maybe clarify what it all means.
As you may have heard in my recent Blamo Podcast interview with Jeremy Kirkland, I fell in love with fashion, brand building, design and product when I was a pretty young lad. Back then, in the earlier days of the internet, you had to be very particular in the words you typed in the search bar of askjeeves.com. "How do I make a shirt" wouldn't cut it. Learning what to search and the vocabulary of the industry was as important as what little information I'd find. Eventually I'd find the page I needed that pointed me in the direction of the correct blank t-shirt, or how to embellish it properly, or how to design a logo, or what site I could use to download a keygen cracked version of adobe. It was time consuming and sometimes outright unproductive to search for that info in those days but eventually the internet got smarter and I get better at designing, and finding ways to get wholesale accounts with T-shirt distributors, or where to find classes on design so I could design more like my heroes.
The one thing that did not get easier was trying to find a place to make cut and sew anything in America, or really anywhere at that time. After hours down the rabbit hole trying to find a place that made cut and sew garments or hats in America I was often turned away by the the worst three letters a small brand owner can come in contact with...
M. O. Q.
For those of you not familiar, MOQ stands for Minimum Order Quantity. This is the number that represents what a factory will get out of bed for. For reference, as a fairly successful brand that does do some work in America, as well as overseas, we hover around a 100 piece MOQ for most of our garments. I have it on good authority that some of your favorite independent brands are not much larger than that in terms of their buy per sku (stock keeping unit). I mention that to explain how most factories in America were somewhere in the range of 10x that number for their MOQ. Baffling numbers for a young designer. Honestly still baffling as an old one. Doing the math, and this is still true of most factories, but if you don't have 50K in your wallet to produce one sku you better kick rocks. Even raw materials like American made selvedge denim is basically impossible to acquire unless you know someone or have a FAT wallet.
They want to streamline their production and produce a lot of one thing. They want BIG business (Levi's). That was not me. I would email and beg. I'd hear e-crickets. To this day unless you have a connection, or a fairly medium sized brand, nobody wants to look in your direction unless you're coming with some big money. Even when you do find a factory willing to do you some work, you are often met with a lot of "no"s in terms of what they are willing to do for you. You want to flat fell the front and rear rise on those pants instead of serging them? Fuck out of here buster, you're lucky we're dealing with you at all.
In contrast, when I was in college trying to make products, I found a, then very young, worldwide marketplace by the name of Alibaba. Ever heard of it? Alibaba was and still is fairly genius. They guarantee that if you pay to have a product produced in China, you will receive that product or get a full refund (think paypal for product development). For a guy who had sent hundreds if not thousands of dollars to factories only to get stiffed and receive the silent treatment, this business model was truly a breakthrough. No wonder the owner is a multi fuck you billionaire. And say what you will about making things in China (don't forget the phone in your hand is most likely made there), but their communities are organized around manufacturing. Entire cities devoted to making clothing, equipment, accessories, or whatever the fuck you can think of, efficiently. Here in America factories love to say no. There they love to say yes. So for close to ten years I made things there, and developed relationships with beautiful people, in impressive factories. Where American factories would go silent at the idea of making 100 pieces of a garment, split between two colors, for a small brand nobody ever heard of, in China I was met with "Yes Mike we can do this for you. We like your designs and believe in you. We know your company will grow and then so will ours." I owe a great debt to the people over there I continue to work with. And I pay them very well to produce the products they do for me (as my design skills have grown so have their production quality). I can't see a time that I won't make things with them.
That being said, using the money I make from those items to subsidize the lengthy, frustrating, and expensive process of making things back home, seems kind of poetic. This, as I have said before, Is me investing in my own fashion design education, as well as doing my part to revive the once great New England garment manufacturing ecosystem. Working with the likes of New England Shirt co. to produce beautiful Japanese flannel work shirts is a dream come true. Working with a mom and pop shop out of Bridgeport, Conn. really humanizes the process. Sometimes we forget PEOPLE sew these things together. Families. And these smaller mom and pop shops also seem to be more likely to say "yes". I feel a tide turning there. Even in Los Angeles, they seem to say yes more often now. Not sure if that's a return to American manufacturing culture or if they just see I'm big enough to probably pay my bills on time. Either way its encouraging.
As mainline Manresa grows, so will Bluehorse. and so goes a pretty beautiful self sustaining growth machine. Who knows, maybe one day there will be a big brick building off I95 in Bridgeport with a large hand painted sign on top reading MANRESA CLOTHING CO. Machines and people inside humming. Gimme ten years. The ride will be entertaining I promise.
Cya soon.
-MM