Move over farm to fork: hello, Dirt to Shirt!
By Rachel Kibbe
While most “Made in the USA” clothes use textiles from overseas, a recent story on PBS told the story of a textile company in North Carolina that is trying to change that, making clothes with cotton actually grown in North Carolina. Can you imagine? All sarcasm aside, it's actually a totally revolutionary thing at this point in the US.
After NAFTA, 80% of clothing production moved overseas, leaving hundreds of textile workers in North Carolina, and other states, out of work. While lots of cotton is actually still grown in the states and business is booming, most of it is then popped into shipping containers and shipped overseas to become cloth. Just another ridiculous example of fashion's unnecessarily convoluted and wasteful supply chain. But Textile factory owner Eric Henry is trying to turn that around, even creating a website where you can track the exact location of the farm where the cotton in your clothes was grown using the colors thread used in your seams.
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