AMERICAN TRENCH - OFFICIAL AFFILIATE THREAD

[LatAm]

Subscribed! Thanks so much @jah786 and @A.T. Hamlin for taking the time to do this.

Fascinating to read about the factory visit and the danger of an exciting but pricey project.

 

[mattw]

Will the wool fleece be returning this coming season? Starting to regret passing on it

 

[jah786]

Subscribed! Thanks so much @jah786 and @A.T. Hamlin for taking the time to do this.

Fascinating to read about the factory visit and the danger of an exciting but pricey project.

stay tuned! next week, we are going to North Carolina to visit sock factories, sock finishing and dye houses, a glove factory, a specialty printer that makes sock bands, and maybe a yarn spinner! it will be 3 jam packed days. there will be plenty of pictures to post.

 

[jah786]

Will the wool fleece be returning this coming season? Starting to regret passing on it

wool fleece will be returning and we are making a new color, caramel.

 

[jah786]

Friday office fit:
AT ballcap in summer cord, navy
AT cotton cardigan, kelly green
AT slub polo, Irish cream
@Todd Shelton jeans in white
common project bball low [bought at the NEED Supply going out of biz sale!]

 

[Todd Shelton]

Well done.

 

[jah786]

We are doing free shipping this weekend. If you are new to the brand, grab some socks, underwear, a bucket hat, or some OE mesh shorts - something that would normally be under our free ship threshold!

 

[jms]

Friday office fit:
AT ballcap in summer cord, navy
AT cotton cardigan, kelly green
AT slub polo, Irish cream
@Todd Shelton jeans in white
common project bball low [bought at the NEED Supply going out of biz sale!]

Really like the cardigan here. It's doing a lot of work. (Bringing a hint of color, etc.)

 

[jah786]

Really like the cardigan here. It's doing a lot of work. (Bringing a hint of color, etc.)

The shaker knit cardigans are new to us this spring and I really like how they turned out. I wear my kelly green one often. I find it looks great with most things, maybe the only color I don't wear it with is olive (or other shades of green). The cardigan is machine washable and hardwearing, and it doesn't bag out after two wears. You can keep going with it. I'm kinda using cardigans now in place of blazers. I find they bring a little bit of the structure that a blazer does without quite as much formality. I'm definitely in a cardigan phase and we have a great cardigan planned for fall in a wool / viscose / cashmere blend.

 

[A.T. Hamlin]

I wrote a newsletter last week about our floral sets for this Spring-Summer. Here's my thesis on "busy" beach/boat/barbecue shirts:

​ Don't let the fool in the cheap flamingo & mojito splattered shirt trick you into thinking that all shirts in playful prints are for dummies. As in all things, there's a fine line between class and crass. That being said: a shirt made from serious material does not need to be entirely serious. Why not have a little fun? The sun's out, after all. ​ With fabric imported from Japan, the Floral Set from American Trench for SS22 guarantees three quality pieces - shorts, bucket hat, camp collar shirt - that are top notch from the top down. 100% Cotton, all three of these floral print products will breathe as well as any natural fiber garment this summer. With hints of blue, red, green and gold, these three pieces are guaranteed to bloom with any summer ensemble.

As with all things copywriter related, there's always a hint of English essay "do I really believe this?" when I write these argument type newsletters. Obviously I think the quality in our Floral Sets is top cheese - and I don't think I'm necessarily anti "Hawaiin" shirt, especially with non-specific objects like palm trees and flowers. I kinda like Jimmy Buffet (in doses) - especially at this time of the year.

I think our floral sets are great - they strike the right balance. They are also part of our memorial day sale. Check them out here.

 

[wpashmina]

Hello Styleforum!

I'm Jacob Hurwitz, long time Styleforum member and cofounder of American Trench, a Philadelphia based outerwear, apparel, and accessories brand. We make all of our products in the United States at (mostly) family owned factories. Our original product, launched in 2013, was a trench coat in Ventile, thus the name American Trench. We also launched with a small sock collection that quickly gained traction and led to more accessories, knit caps, ball caps, bucket hats, gloves and scarves. As a long time SF member, I'm excited to finally bring the brand to SF in a more formal way. SF members love to get into the details and this a great way for us to share, collaborate, and explore various aspects of what we are doing. I'm particularly excited to share photos of factory visits, product samples, and other deep dive content (like supply chain) that doesn't see much light beyond our company dropbox account.

With gratitude,
Jacob @americantrench

view from one of our partner sock factories in Hickory, North Carolina
View attachment 1788494

Love your products indeed.

 

[jah786]

Eva from @Epaulet recently invited me to chat about how the brand started and lessons learned (commercial real estate, ugh) in a new podcast for Style forum, you can check out here:
https://journal.styleforum.net/interview-with-jacob-hurwitz-of-american-trench/

The image for the episode highlights a quote about pie factories, a story which came from a pattern maker and professor of fashion at the University of Delaware, Katya Roelse, who help us make the trench coat pattern in the early days. Katya told me that when you visit a factory, you figure out what they do best and you adapt (if it fits with your product line), you don't expect them to make whatever you want. Her whole analogy had to do with pie factories, which was hilarious and always stuck out in my mind. "You don't go to a berry pie factory and ask for a cream pie." Still to the this day I have no idea why she choose pie as the type of factory but it is memorable.

 

[d4nimal]

 

[jah786]

Last week I was out of the office visiting factories in North Carolina. Our first stop right off the plane was one of our retail partners in Charlotte, Tabor. If you live in the Charlotte area or are passing through, I highly recommend a visit. They have some great brands and a really cool store that also has an art gallery and coffee bar in an old bungalow. I've noticed that midwest and southern cities tend to have cool stores in building types you don't normally associate with commercial usage in a city in the mid-Atlantic or northeast. Houston, Nashville, and Atlanta are also similar in this way. I learned of a new brand (to me) called FAR AFIELD and they had some pretty cool prints. Tabor also had some awesome vintage items, watches, letter openers, dice, etc. Very cool store.

 

[jah786]

Our first factory visit was in the High Point, NC area, which is known for furniture. We were visiting a hosiery mill, which was a new manufacturing partner for us and our first ever meet and greet. It kinda blew us away, it was the biggest and most advanced hosiery mill I've ever been in. They have 1000 machines and over 350 people work there. They knit for some huge companies (e.g. Walmart sized folks) and had the latest machinery. They also had some really really smart people working there, mechanics and engineers who created their custom machinery. The management team and the owner showed us around. One thing that struck me was how management knew every line worker. Everyone was working hard but there was a real team / family business mentality. Maybe the only bummer about the entire visit was they had so much custom machinery that we were not allowed to take any pictures of hardly anything.

I did press for several pics. this is Chad, the chief mechanic. he has been working in mills since he was 16, he told me. He had a pretty cool shop coat on with weird hosiery tools sticking out of the pockets. his bottom pockets were so ripped up that he had stapled them back together with these crazy big metal staples. Chad is a bit of a mechanical wizard and had a bunch of custom machines and equipment that he built in use at the mill. Most recently he machined and welded custom racks that were then copied at scale for the entire mill so they could feed yarn to the machines more efficiently.

for a hosiery mill, this place was spotless, no mess or dirt was found anywhere. there was a real sense of pride in the work and they were fanatical about quality. They make a military-spec wool sock on double cylinder true rib machines that we are going to make our own version of. It has a compression band and cushioned foot but isn't too thick. It's pretty badass, so stay turned for that.

I was allowed to take one photos of some of the management and sales team (and Chad the mechanic) on the knitting floor. You can at least get a small feel for the size of this place. this was one of three gigantic buildings we toured, of which the complex had 5 such buildings, so we didn't even see it all. Some of these folks have been in hosiery all of their lives and even came to work at the mill via family members that were there before them.