How we chose the T-Shirt
Something I rarely get asked is “Why did we choose to automate T-Shirts?” Why not Jeans? There are some obvious technology and market reasons for us. Jeans have 40 plus operations in the construction process where a t-shirt has 10. Jeans have a 3D waistband and zippers. T-shirts can be done flat and usually don’t have zippers (at least not the ones I wear). So the t-shirt best matches up with our material handling and flat sewing capabilities. From a market point of view, the t-shirt is a basic and every person in America consumes an average 10 shirts annually. I assume college kids make up my lack of t-shirts. That’s 3.3B t-shirts consumed annually representing a $10B market at manufacturing ($3 cost) and about $60B at retail ($19 retail). But beyond market and technology, there was a passion behind the story of t-shirts. And while there have been a number of iconic figures, movements and movies that have shared that story, mine I got all in one 3 hour meeting with Dov Charney, the former founder and CEO of American Apparel.
Popularized by the Navy but invented as the Bachelor shirts. Today’s T-shirts are there own market. Undershirts like Hanes or Jockey belong to the underwear category.
Many people have thoughts on Dov. The Dov I know is abrasive, kind, straightforward, politically incorrect and generally unable to contain his thoughts whether appropriate or not. He is high energy, passionate about building things and is strangely passionate about t-shirts in particular. In the picture here, he is literally constructing a t-shirt out of paper. We had to scour the office for scissors and tape (because we have too many engineers and they use knives and hot glue guns), so that Dov could show us one of the 13 ways that a t-shirt is manufactured depending on which region of the U.S. it is being made. If you have ever seen a 10 year old feverishly assembling a paper snowflake chain or you have seen “A Christmas Story” when Ralphie was trying to solve the Ovaltine riddle, then you can picture Dov in action. Bits of paper flying up everywhere. Corners being redone to approximate the comfort of a real t-shirt. I mean, a rough corner on this paper t-shirt could really rub you the wrong way!! I wanted to look around for a candid camera or google Dov Charney so I could prove the person I was looking at was really him. This was much more than a paper snowflake chain. It was more like asking an Italian chef about their sauce recipe (minus the secrecy). It is fundamental to their being. T-shirts are the italian sauce recipe from which every basic apparel brand must grow. Start with a well branded (unique material/pattern) t-shirt, sell it to the imprintable market (the distributors and large screen printers who add your tag lines and logos), grow volume to cut your manufacturing costs, launch a few other products to fill a catalog like leggings, go direct to the consumer via e-commerce and then eventually launch retail. In fact, according to Dov, America’s most purchased t-shirt is the Hanes beefy t-shirt and the American Apparel shirt which is literally designed from Dov’s own body (measurements, fits, patterns, etc). If you know Dov, It’s harder to believe that wouldn’t be the case. So basically it’s fact. :D
T-shirts had immediately taken on a life of their own. No longer was this an apparel product for automating. This was a living breathing thing. I would spend the next 18 months on the factory floors studying t-shirts to find the best way to automate them.
T-shirts are as American as apple pie. It makes sense that we would chose T-shirts to be the first garment ever 100% automated.