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These days, it's hard to come by a label that touts "Made in the USA," and don't even mention "Made in NYC." Indeed, domestic clothing production largely fell by the wayside back in the '70s, but, luckily, there’s a strong contingent of New York-based designers working to change that. It’s a movement that has continued to gain strength in more recent years, thanks to people like Nanette Lepore and Maria Cornejo.
These leaders are joined by a contingency of fashion movers doing their best to bring it local, like Jason Wu (who manufactures 95 percent of his line in NYC), Thakoon (he makes roughly 50 percent of his collection here), and Theory (they make all samples here and a portion of the label), but the change is still somewhat limited to categories like knitwear. Michael Kors and Elie Tahari have also been big components for the movement, yet due to their large volumes, they aren’t really able to produce much of their respective collections here.
Here, Lepore and Co. share how they are doing it and why it’s worth it. Needless to say, it makes us love their locally grown threads even more.
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