Announcing 1791 Denim from 1791 Supply & Co. on Vimeo.
Starting today, 1791 Denim is available exclusively at 1791.com. Initial supply is extremely limited – order now to secure a pair of the first run of 1791 Denim.
Glenn Beck announced Monday morning the release of 1791 Denim, a new line of jeans made entirely in America. The jeans are the latest from 1791, a clothing line launched by Glenn in 2011.
The team at 1791 has been working on the jeans for close to a year, something unheard of in the fashion industry.
The jeans were conceived by Glenn, who has been involved with the new jeans in every step of the process from the stitching, to the buttons, and to the quality of the rivets. Tim Didonato, 1791 Designer, has been the point man on the design, working with Glenn to make sure his vision for the new line was executed. He has been branding all of the labels on the back of the jeans by hand, as well as managing all of the details of the look of the jeans.
LJ Herman, Senior Director of E-Commerce at Mercury Radio Arts, heads up the business end of 1791 and managed the launch of 1791 Denim alongside Tim.
The idea for the jeans came in 2011, when Glenn was doing research for an episode of TV focused on the fashion industries use of advertisements that celebrated the protests in Europe and the Middle East. Glenn found that jeans, an iconic American product, were no longer being made in America.
Rather than sit back and complain about yet another industry going overseas, Glenn decided to do something about it and tasked the nascent 1791 clothing line, staffed by only Tim and LJ, with making a new line of jeans that would be made entirely in America. And they had to do it as soon as possible - since that is the only deadline that Glenn ever gives his employees.
A year later and the jeans are finally ready. The premium 100% cotton ring-spun selvedge jeans are 100% “Made in the USA”. They are woven in Greensboro, NC at Cone Denim ™ Mills, and are cut and sewn in Kentucky at a factory established in the 1920s.
In a profile of Cone Denim ™ Mills, Businessweek explained the appeal of selvedge jeans:
Aficionados crave “selvage,” or “self-edge,” jeans, which are more durable than the modern variety and develop a kind of patina over time. They’re made on narrower fly-shuttle looms that create a continuous, uncut edge—something jeans devotees can tell instantly from the characteristic edging inside the legs or when the bottoms are rolled up. These jeans began disappearing in the 1970s as U.S. mills switched to high-speed looms to compete with fabric going into cheap apparel. The newer machines operated much faster but produced a less idiosyncratic product. More recently, Japanese companies discovered a market for old-fashioned jeans, which have since caught on with hipsters around the world. White Oak stays open by “targeting a niche business,” says Kenneth Kunberger, International Textile’s chief operating officer. “The only place in the world where these Draper fly-shuttle looms are running right now is right here.”
1791 Denim is now available at 1791.com.
UPDATED: Watch Glenn discuss the new jeans on radio:
