ONE AFTERNOON<\/strong> <\/span>in 2011, Pete Roberts was sitting in his basement listening as a manufacturer living halfway around the world told him over a video call that ripping off Roberts\u2019 jiu-jitsu uniform designs and selling them to companies in Europe was not only perfectly legal, it was the game. Roberts felt as most people would upon hearing he\u2019d been\u2014and likely would continue to be\u2014swindled: furious.<\/p>\n So Roberts hung up on the man, walked upstairs to tell his wife something needed to change, and within a week began marking trees at his home in rural Maine for logging.<\/p>\n Roberts planned to build a factory. Then a company. Then a movement. And nothing would be outsourced overseas. No manufacturer would take his product, slap a different logo on it, and sell it to someone else. Everything\u2014from the thread to the buttons to the fabric\u2014would be made at home, in the United States of America.<\/p>\n Shortly after he cut those first trees down, Roberts established Origin<\/a>, which manufactures premium jiu-jitsu gis for training and competition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was kind of a crime of passion,\u201d Roberts tells Outdoor Life<\/em> about logging his own timber. \u201cI didn\u2019t really have a business plan. I got a bunch of friends and family together, they started cutting these trees down and poured a slab and raised this old-school timber frame kind of barn. I found two old LL Bean Singer sewing machines from the \u201840s and \u201850s. We had somebody work on them, bring them bring them back to life, and we just started sewing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n By 2017 the business began to take off. Roberts partnered with former Navy Seal commander and author John \u201cJocko\u201d Willink, and moved into a 20,000-square-foot brick building that had been a fall-out shelter, where they manufactured denim and boots. In 2021, he acquired an existing plant in North Carolina, then a second one this year. And this September, Roberts and Willink worked with Under Armor co-founder Kip Fulks and bowhunter Cameron Hanes to launch a new line of camouflage<\/a> made\u2014you guessed it\u2014entirely in the USA.<\/p>\n \u201c[Roberts] developed these jeans and these boots in this kind of blue-collar mentality, and I\u2019m like, Bingo, hunting<\/em>,\u201d says Fulks. \u201cHunting is a close adjacency to the patriotism of \u2018Made in the USA.\u2019 It just flat-out makes a ton of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Camouflage made in the U.S. might not sound novel, but it\u2019s a rare product. If hunters are anything, as Fulks points out, they\u2019re a patriotic bunch, emblazoning the stars and stripes on truck sides, bumper stickers and gun stocks. But look at the tags in your new pants, wicking shirts, and down jackets, and you\u2019ll find very few modern-made garments that weren\u2019t made overseas. While Origin isn\u2019t the only company making camo in the U.S.\u2014Forloh<\/a> and Voormi<\/a> also manufacture stateside\u2014the company is coming to the public with a splash that includes big names<\/a>, a high-profile social media presence<\/a>, and the bootstraps, made-in-America origin story that consumers can\u2019t seem to get enough of.<\/p>\n Roberts and Fulks say domestic production is a matter of principle: Clothing manufacturing can and should return home to the U.S. Other camo companies, like Kuiu<\/a>, say it\u2019s about the final product: If a Japanese company makes the best waterproof and breathable fabric in the world, then they\u2019re going to source their materials from a Japanese company.<\/p>\n Aaron Snyder, co-owner of Kifaru<\/a>, says it\u2019s good to see someone else joining the made-in-the-USA game, though he\u2019s reserving final judgement until he sees Origin\u2019s camo in person. (The camo has been available for pre-order, but most consumers have yet to get their hands on the gear.)<\/p>\n \u201cI think that they have an uphill road to hoe because it is a difficult thing to make clothing in the U.S. I think it can be done. We\u2019re doing it and have been doing it for 30 years,\u201d says Snyder. \u201cOnly time will tell what that final product will be and what the feedback will be from the end consumer. Are they going to come through and buy it? Is it going to be high quality?\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts is not a garment expert by profession\u2014not at the beginning of his career, at least. The Mainer owned a small media company before the 2008 financial crash left him and his wife, who worked at their local school district, with nothing but their home.<\/p>\n Freshly unemployed, Roberts allowed himself to pour his attention into jiu-jitsu, a passion and therapy of his. It wasn\u2019t until he started spending so much time on the mat that he noticed the gear hadn\u2019t changed much in a hundred years: \u201cIt was like watching NFL football, and they\u2019re still wearing leather helmets.\u201d<\/p>\n He could do better, Roberts figured, so he developed concepts which would change the way the athletic clothing should work, considering everything from biomechanics to fibers. When he looked for manufacturers in the U.S., he came up short.<\/p>\n \u201cEverywhere I turned I hit a roadblock,\u201d he says. \u201cFinally, I got an answer from somebody and they\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, if you spend one million with us, we can weave this fabric for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n So he went overseas\u2014like most everyone does\u2014to countries like Pakistan, where the clothes could be made for relatively cheap and imported with few tariffs. The gi sales proved modestly successful, but the quality was poor, and the whole thing felt wrong to him. Then he realized his manufacturer was taking his designs, slapping a different logo on them and selling them in Europe and even in the U.S.<\/p>\n The U.S. wasn\u2019t always a manufacturing black hole, but the transition from garment production on American soil to global in the 1990s was quick, efficient, and almost entirely due to trade agreements with other countries that opened the door to cheap manufacturing almost everywhere but here.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at old Champion sweatshirts and stuff, apparel from like the mid-\u201980s and early \u201890s, a lot of that stuff was still made in the United States, so it\u2019s not like stuff\u2019s been made over in China for all that long,\u201d says Luke Kjos of Boss Shotshells, which sources its Boss merchandise<\/a> from American manufacturers and has a hell of a time doing so. \u201cIt just went really quickly. And when it went, it was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Business owners began to outsource everything\u2014from yarn to dye houses to the factories themselves\u2014overseas in their search for more affordable raw materials, cheaper labor, fewer operating expenses, and less complex regulations.<\/p>\n Roberts and one of his original partners Andre \u201cDedeco\u201d Almeida, were all in, not just on making clothes, but rethinking American manufacturing completely.<\/p>\n \u201cOrigin\u2019s logo [represents] the wave of freedom. It\u2019s the wave of reshoring our jobs and machinery, restoring the communities, and reclaiming what\u2019s been lost,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a reclamation project and a renaissance of sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n Just like American Pickers<\/em>, the History Channel show about scouring barns and garages for valuable treasures, Roberts and his team went everywhere looking for machinery they could bring back to life. They found a loom in an abandoned mill in Lewiston, Maine, the only one in the factory that hadn\u2019t been shipped to China or India.<\/p>\n \u201cThis old woman was going to put it in the museum,\u201d he says. \u201cI told her I wanted it.\u201d<\/p>\n He bought the loom, spent 40 hours just cleaning the lanolin off it, and found someone who still knew how to use it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we just started to pass the knowledge of how to cut and sew and weave fabric into garments,\u201d Roberts says, who was the first one in his business to learn those skills.<\/p>\n Roberts knew his company was making a product consumers would want, so he filmed a video of one the gis being made, and threw it up on YouTube<\/a> and Facebook. He wanted his future customers to know exactly where their clothes came from. Revenue from gi presales enabled Origin to buy a loom and another sewing machine. He and Almeida were hand to mouth in those days, but they made it work.<\/p>\n In 2017, they had 12 employees. Today, Origin makes jeans, leather boots, hoodies, base layers, belts, and other accessories, employs more than 400 people, and owns four factories in three states. And for the last three years, they were ranked in the top 500 on Inc 5000\u2019s list<\/a> of fastest growing businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re kind of like the tip of the spear of this renaissance of manufacturing, which obviously started in New England with the Industrial Revolution,\u201d Roberts says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s kind of a second chance at it, and I think we can do it better.\u201d<\/p>\n Making clothing\u2014or anything else for that matter\u2014in the U.S. requires more than some final assembly. The statement comes with clout, and regulations.<\/p>\n According to the Federal Trade Commission, a product with a \u201cMade in the USA\u201d label \u201cwithout qualifications or limits on the claim,\u201d must be \u201call or virtually all made in the U.S.\u201d The federal agency then goes on to describe various scenarios where a product may include something foreign but still count as made in America.<\/p>\n If a gas grill, for example, is made of almost entirely American products and assembled in the U.S. but the tubes and knobs are imported, it can still carry the Made in the U.S. label. Even though Tiffany (which the FTC uses as an example) makes most of its fancy lamps domestically, it imports the relatively inexpensive base. Because the base comprises too much of the actual lamp, Tiffany cannot claim their lamp is \u201cMade in America.\u201d<\/p>\n If that sounds like a gray area, it is\u2014and some brands use it to their advantage.<\/p>\n The Lions Not Sheep company and its owner recently faced more than $210,000 in fines<\/a> by the FTC for allegedly removing \u201cMade in China\u201d tags and replacing them with \u201cMade in the USA\u201d labels. Owner Sean Whalen told USA Today<\/em><\/a> <\/em>that the company did not agree with the ruling.<\/p>\n Of the relatively limited clothing still being made in the U.S., most of it is manufactured for the military courtesy of a bill called the Berry Amendment<\/a>. The permanent adoption of that statute in 1994 restricts the Department of Defense from using money to buy fibers, fabrics, and other textiles from overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cIf not for the Berry Amendment, it would have all gone overseas,\u201d says Bryan Boulis, president of Ocean State Innovations<\/a>, one of the remaining major textile manufacturers in the U.S.<\/p>\n The Origin team began analyzing military fabrics and working with people like Boulis to see how the materials available here could be retooled to fit their needs. Wool used in fighter-pilot gloves, which are designed to keep pilots\u2019 hands from getting cold, wet, and damp, became the base for Origin\u2019s Stealth Wool Jacket, Fulks says. The pants use low-profile tactical pockets inspired by those found in the Navy. Even the print, which they\u2019re calling Origin Raptor camo, is a throwback from Vietnam War camouflage with a modern twist courtesy of Fulks\u2019 experience studying camo patterns at Under Armor.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really cool camouflage that has this nostalgic feel to it,\u201d Roberts says.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all fine, says, Jason Widaman, Kuiu\u2019s vice president of supply chain, but making an entire, high-end camouflage line in the U.S. right now just isn\u2019t realistic. Kuiu was founded in 2011 and initially used a small factory in Vancouver, Canada, but quickly ran into capacity constraints.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter our first year, we went back to them and said, \u2018This is what we want,\u2019 and they\u2019re like \u2018There\u2019s no way we can produce that quantity,\u2019\u201d Widaman says. \u201cWe searched to try and find more capacity in the U.S., but it\u2019s just very limited on pushing the envelope on lighter and faster [hunting clothing].\u201d<\/p>\n Kuiu sent a team overseas looking for new fabrics and factories to cut and sew. They found the best Merino wool comes from New Zealand, and the best lightweight, high performance, breathable fabric called Primeflex comes from a Japanese company called Toray. Toray is actually a giant chemical company<\/a> with a large apparel division that\u2019s known as the \u201cindustry leader that nobody can use because of the cost,\u201d says Widaman. \u201cThey do things light. They can do things that dry faster.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of the way Toray produces its technical fabrics, it doesn\u2019t need to add elastic or Spandex to their products. Spandex adds stretch, which is welcome in activewear like hunting camo\u2014but it also adds weight. The expense of such a high-tech Japanese-sourced fabric is why a pair of Kuiu\u2019s Chugach rain pants still cost $259<\/a> even though the California-based company is selling directly to consumers.<\/p>\n And why doesn\u2019t Kuiu just import that fabric into the U.S. instead of cutting and sewing it in Vietnam? Because of import tariffs, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I wanted to bring fabric into the U.S. from, say, Japan or Taiwan, most of it would be taxed at 32 percent duty,\u201d says Widaman. \u201cThe way the duties are written, it is cost prohibitive for me to bring in raw materials to cut and sew.\u201d<\/p>\n To avoid those hefty fees that would ultimately be passed along to consumers, Kuiu sends its fabric to Vietnam, which has a free trade agreement with Japan and imports the final garments into the U.S. at a lower duty rate, at times in the single digits.<\/p>\n Call him optimistic, but Roberts believes manufacturing can be brought back home.<\/p>\n \u201cThe things that we\u2019ve built in America, and our engineering and design, is bar none,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just applying that same mindset to something that we haven\u2019t been doing for a while. We\u2019ve abandoned the idea that we can do it in textiles and garments, and it\u2019s not the case, we absolutely still can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n For Fulks, it\u2019s not just about bringing jobs home, but about treating workers fairly and safeguarding the environment. He spent much of his career touring factories across the globe for Under Armor and says he has seen the ugliest sides of unregulated overseas manufacturing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we have beautiful trout streams in the United States?\u201d says Fulks. \u201cBecause we have the Environmental Protection Agency that has done an amazing job of clarifying what is good for the environment and what is not.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s cost of labor. Aside from the obvious wage differences between countries in, say, southeast Asia, and the U.S., Fulks also points to safety regulations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no OSHA,\u201d says Fulks, rattling off U.S. factory-supplied amenities like extra safety glasses, eye wash stations, and clearly marked fire extinguisher locations. \u201cDo you think there\u2019s a labeled fire extinguisher in a plant in Cambodia? You think they care about those workers? They don\u2019t. Here in the States, we\u2019re bound by federal and state law to provide safe and comfortable workplaces. And that drives costs of infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n (Fulks later clarified that \u201csome good places exist\u201d overseas but he\u2019s still seen \u201csome horror stories.\u201d)<\/p>\n And even Kuiu plans to launch a garment soon made with American fabrics, though Widaman couldn\u2019t say much about it until it\u2019s public. A spokesperson for Sitka, whose pant and jacket labels read \u201cMade in Vietnam,\u201d declined to comment for this story citing \u201ccompetitive reasons.\u201d First Lite, whose camo labels read \u201cdesigned in the USA, made in Vietnam,\u201d also declined to comment.<\/p>\n Voormi and Forloh both carry \u201cMade in America\u201d tags on their products. Voormi chief technology officer Timm Smith says they\u2019ve been able to source almost everything they need in the U.S. except fine Merino wool, which comes from Europe, and their socks, which are made in New Zealand. That means some labels will say \u201cMade in the USA with fine imported wool.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Smith and Forloh\u2019s founder and CEO, Andy Techmanski, say being able to source, cut, sew, and finalize camo in the U.S. comes down to relationships with factories across the country. Voormi has shops and factories in Colorado and Montana, and also works with factories in many other states. Techmanski wouldn\u2019t say where his factories were located, adding that he didn\u2019t want to give away too much information in a finite and competitive business.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people are trying to figure out the secret sauce,\u201d he says, citing manufacturing locations from California to New Jersey. \u201cWe\u2019re all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n Luke Kjos with Boss has figured out ways to manufacture some products in the U.S. The company\u2019s Burley hoodie, which is made entirely here, consistently sells out immediately with people waiting to buy another<\/a>. But he\u2019s running up against the financial frustrations of producing at home. His cut-and-sew costs keep rising for a lightweight fishing hoodie.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s because if you\u2019re trying to do that in the U.S., it\u2019s a little mom and pop shop, not a big factory in China where there\u2019s 3,000 employees and they can put one together for 18 cents,\u201d Kjos says. \u201cThe one I\u2019m doing, she quoted me $19 per garment to sew here. If I\u2019m looking at my competitors\u2019 lightweight fishing shirts, they\u2019re not even into the whole garment for $19.\u201d<\/p>\n Snyder figures Kifaru would be 60 percent more profitable if it manufactured 70 percent of its packs, bags, and clothes overseas and then \u201cthrow a flag on.\u201d He\u2019s not sure high-end camo\u2014the kind that\u2019s lightweight, breathable and stretches four ways\u2014could be made here. Kifaru\u2019s Lost Park pants and parkas are made in the U.S. because they use insulation that was created for the military and an outer shell material that was repurposed from sleeping bags.<\/p>\n Tariffs, labor shortages, and lack of infrastructure aside, both Snyder and Kjos agree that the success of 100 percent manufacturing of camouflage in the U.S. will ultimately come down to whether hunters who want gear made in the U.S. are willing to pay the higher prices associated with it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that we can\u2019t, it\u2019s that \u2026 I\u2019m somewhat of a skeptic on that everyone will complain about wanting everything made in America and the moment they have to actually pay for it, they go to Walmart,\u201d Snyder says. \u201cThat\u2019s a big commitment for multiple people to make not knowing what the consumer will actually do.\u201d<\/p>\n Ironically, the global supply chain issues caused by the pandemic could help domestic manufacturing, Kjos says. The longer it takes for container ships to move across oceans, the more impatient companies and consumers here get. Add to that a skyrocketing cost in shipping, and our collective \u201chand might be forced to try and figure out manufacturing here\u201d in the U.S.<\/p>\n Origin\u2019s camo line is available for pre-order (the NYLOC Field Pant<\/a> will run you $162 before tax), with premium merino wool coming from farms across the U.S., cotton from the Tennessee Delta, and polypropylene from an American company called Repreve<\/a> that recycles polyester. Origin also makes its own, called PolySynth. Roberts and his wife Amanda, the company\u2019s chief operating officer, take shifts overseeing their North Carolina expansion. Plans call to create what Origin describes as \u201cAmerica\u2019s future factory\u201d on a 105-acre farm in Maine, where consumers can shop and see the factory, including weaving, at work. Meanwhile, Voormi offers customers a similar experience at their shops in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and Bozeman, Montana, which are attached to their factories.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that different than going to Sonoma County and seeing the wine maker and being willing to buy that fancy bottle because there\u2019s a real connection to it,\u201d he says. \u201cIn those instances, we see people very excited to get behind it and get a premium product.\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts has no doubt that an innovative, quality hunt line can be built in America with American labor and supplies.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople think it\u2019s not possible because it would be too cost prohibitive,\u201d he says, \u201cbut when you change the culture and change the business model, it\u2019s possible because we\u2019ve always built the best product in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, it\u2019s up to hunters to decide what kind of gear they want, if they like the quality, and how much they\u2019re willing to pay for it.<\/p>\n Read more\u00a0OL+<\/a>\u00a0stories.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nA Domestic Origin Story<\/h2>\n
![\"Cutting](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/cutting_origin_camo.jpg\")
![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/sewing_origin_camo.jpg\")
A Lost Art<\/h2>\n
![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/USA_vintage_Camo.jpg\")
Retooling for a New Era<\/h2>\n
![\"Jocko](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/pete_roberts_origin_Camo.jpg\")
Sizing Up the Competition<\/h2>\n
![\"Kuiu](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/AJ8A8162.jpg\")
![\"Hunting](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/sitka_firstlite_kuiu_high_end_camo.jpg\")
A Nice Ideal, or a Real Movement?<\/h2>\n
![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/origin_raptor_camo.jpg\")
![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/10\/07\/origin_camo_box.jpg\")
A Waiting Game<\/h2>\n