The first factory tour I posted on ACL was Rocco Ciccarelli’s suit factory in Queens. Previous to that, my friend took me to a tie factory in Manhattan but that predates ACL and it was never posted. Watching the ties being made was my first foray into the spectator sport of apparel manufacturing. This week — with a trip to the Hamilton Shirts factory in Houston — I finally completed the trifecta of menswear staples: suits, shirts and ties.
The Brooklyn shop Epaulet recently took a trip up to Middleborough, Mass. to visit the factory of the venerable American shoemaker Alden to finalize the details on the shop’s new special edition Brixton boot. In addition to coming back with a great looking pair of boots, Epaulet owner Mike Kuhle and filmmaker Tom Eaton put together an interesting look at the Alden operation including the video below and a nice photo gallery. American boots and a factory tour? Sounds like a perfect Thursday to me.
Not too far into the bio on the Schott website you will find this sentence: “We are a true-blue, real-deal, piece of Americana.” It really can’t be put any better, so that is all I really need to say. A few weeks back I took a little trip out to the Schott factory in New Jersey to see the nearly 100 year old company in action. After seeing the facilities and meeting the good people from Schott, I left with a renewed sense of appreciation for a company with devotion to not only quality, but to the people and place that made them what they are. It takes a lot of sticktoitiveness to resist the call of overseas labor and continue to manufacture domestically. I also left with the feeling that my life was not complete without a perfectly worn-in Perfecto leather motorcycle jacket. Schott Bros. Inc has been making quality outerwear for motorcyclists and military men in the New York City area since 1913 when Irving Schott founded the company on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Still to this day a family run business, Schott is doing what they do best, making a good product at a fair price. So do yourself and your fellow Americans a favor and buy a Perfecto.
Good things come to those who wait. Back in April I went up to Maine on a top secret mission that I am finally ready to reveal (in two parts) today and tomorrow. As you would guess my mission was shoe based, to go to a factory specializing in hand sewn shoes and document everything while my friend worked out the details for a very special collection of shoes that I will reveal for the first time tomorrow.
I have gone to lengths to show as much of the play-by-play as I could without giving away what brands were being manufactured. (Out of respect for the factory owners who were gracious enough to allow me to poke around.) It was my first time in a shoe factory in Maine and the workers seemed either curious as to my presence or decidedly ambivalent. The shoe making process from start to finish seems fairly straight-forward, workers prepare the leather and operate the pneumatic press to cut the various components. Those pieces and parts are shuttled down the line on wooden racks to a series of people who assemble sections until the shoes start to take shape. Eventually the leather parts make their way to a group of hand sewers who work diligently and skillfully to guide their three-inch needle back and forth until the signature moccasin toe is complete. After the hand sewers are finished, the shoes are attached to their soles — either with adhesive or sewn on — touched up, inspected and packaged. It looks fairly simple, but the process requires a great deal of skill and leather experience. Photos of the shop and some seriously good looking shoes after the jump.
Not the typical “American made” type of factory tour, but the good folks at Arc’teryx invited me up to Vancouver to poke around one of their Canadian manufacturing facilities, take some photos for everyone in ACL land and ask some stupid questions about mountaineering and whatnot. It was amazing to see how the products from one of my favorite outdoors brands are made. The skill and time that goes into assembling the company’s GORE -TEX shells, packs and harnesses is astonishing.
Those are good words, Rocco Ciccarelli Custom Tailoring. What is better than just those words, is the place, the man and what he makes. This past week my friend Antonio told me he was going to Rocco’s for a fitting and asked if I wanted to tag along. He knew I was dying to check it out. Going to Rocco’s is like membership into an exclusive, hard to find club for the sartorially obsessed. This is especially true considering Mr. Ciccarelli makes suits for some of the most well respected and fashionable brands in the U.S. I naturally jumped at the chance to go and Wednesday we made our way out to Long Island City, Queens. My friend Mark was the person that really got me interested in seeing factories. A few years ago, he took me to a tie shop in Chelsea and I was hooked. That factory and Rocco’s are the meeting of two of my favorite things, manufacturing and clothing. The art and skill involved in making a suit of clothes is a special talent that is disappearing. That is one of the reasons why Mr. Ciccarelli and the people working for him in Queens, are so exceptional.
Mr. Rocco Ciccarelli
