Lubbock, Texas, sits smack dab in the heart of cotton country. The top nine cotton-producing counties in the nation are within 80 miles of the South Plains city.
Yet finding a 100 percent cotton shirt here to wear to sporting events was next to impossible a few years ago.
Brady Raindl admits growing up on a cotton farm, he never thought much about where his family’s cotton ended up. Nor did he give much thought to the tag under his collar as a cotton buyer for the third largest cotton merchant in the world.
But, a handful of years ago during Texas Tech football’s annual Celebrate Cotton week, a Memphis, Tennessee, cotton merchant pointed out a harsh reality.
The man had browsed through six stores in Lubbock searching for a Texas Tech polo made of cotton and found nothing.
“He said, ‘Guys…I’m in the middle of the biggest freaking cotton-growing region in the world. How am I supposed to support Texas Tech and cotton wearing a 100 percent polyester polo?’” Raindl said the man asked. “I go home and look at my dang closet. And it is chock full of red and black Under Armour polos that are 100 percent polyester.”
It was one reason why Raindl and his wife, Tania, dreamed up Cotton Row Clothier. They wanted a brand that represents a crop important to the family and Texas. And they wanted it to be “Made in the USA.”
“We created this company to say, this is our cotton, ‘we should wear it.’”
Niche industry
It’s nearly impossible to find a business that creates textiles entirely from start to finish in America.
Unlike other U.S. farm-raised commodities that go to flour mills or packing plants and are put on grocery store shelves, the majority of Americans are wearing clothing made overseas.
The United States ranks third in the world in cotton production. However, many U.S. textile mills were shuttered in the 1990s because they were unable to compete with cheap overseas labor. Cotton, instead, is sent to Peru, Vietnam, China and other countries where the industry can make a T-shirt faster and cheaper, said Raindl.
But the Raindls are among the small and growing few, offering a niche cotton product in a country where more than 75 percent of its cotton is exported, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Cotton Row Clothier produced its first polos and T-shirts this past fall. It carries a license to manufacture Texas Tech clothing.
Another is Sock Club. The Austin, Texas-based company operated by Noah Lee and Dane Jensen started over a beer. Jensen, a programmer and developer, wanted to start a colorful sock-of-the-month club based on the success of an Italian sock club with 20,000 subscribers. Lee, who was working in the finance world, offered to help make the idea a success.
“I thought, OK, drinking buddy, hanging out, I didn’t think anything would happen with this,” he admitted.
But Jensen launched the website a few weeks later. People began requesting socks. The friends began buying socks through vendors.
To make the business successful, they knew they had to do something different, Lee said.
“Who wants to put up $10,000 for a bunch of socks we don’t know if we will sell in six months?” he said.
Lee began looking at options and settled on a company in North Carolina to help process the orders.
“Being able to work with North Carolina allows us to do a short-run sock design rapidly without carrying inventory,” he said. “Or made to order socks.”
Today, about 10 percent of the company is the monthly sock subscriptions at $132 a year. The remainder is working as a contract manufacturer. For instance, Tito’s Vodka and Samsung have both ordered custom socks for promotional items.
“U.S. production has made that possible,” Noah said of the quick turnaround and good working arrangement.
Higher costs
It does cost more to manufacture cotton product in the U.S., Lee said, noting he probably pays double the cost to manufacture his socks in America rather than China. He also has increasing competition. When the friends first launched Sock Club in 2012, there were just three other similar businesses. Today there are more than 55 similar sock clubs.
“How do you differentiate yourself?” Lee asked. “We are one of the few that do domestic-only production. It’s a great story. It sets you apart and it creates a branding piece.”
Changing Americans mindset isn’t easy, said Raindl, who added his little business isn’t going to disrupt the U.S. cotton market anytime soon.
Consumers can go to Walmart and buy a $5 cotton T-shirt. His shirts list online for $28.
Raindl added he doesn’t price gouge. To make his high-quality product, it takes multiple points across the entire process. He sources high-quality, long-staple cotton from the Rio Grande Valley to the Texas High Plains. He sends it to mills in North Carolina and to a knitter in New York City.
“We could go right here to Mexico and have every bit of it done for probably…25 percent of the cost it is taking now,” he said.
He estimated 90 percent of Texas cotton is exported. When he started working as a cotton buyer in 2005, the U.S. was consuming about 10 million bales of cotton every year. Use has declined to about 3 million bales.
Moreover, with closures of mills in the southeastern United States, the industry has lost a skilled workforce.
Raindl’s goal is to create not only a brand people want to buy, but also a quality product.
“I’m not changing the dynamics of Texas cotton at all with my brand right now,” he said. “The goal is if we can tell the story of what the farmer is doing and of U.S. manufacturing—we are selling a story along with the high-end quality product.”
Noah said he has the same high costs. He estimated he could have a sock made in China for less money than the cost of yarn he spends in the U.S.
“It blows my mind because most of the cotton you buy in China was grown here,” he said.
Telling the story
“U.S.-grown cotton should be an easy sell,” Raindl said, noting that includes to the farmers who grow it. “Ideally, I’m thinking every person in the industry should be buying our stuff and hopefully we get there.”
But, he said, many producers were like him—wearing a 100 percent polyester shirt when he finds them in their cotton fields.
“When a producer is griping about the price of cotton and all he is wearing is a Texas Tech Under Armour polo made of 100 percent polyester, well, you are part of the problem,” Raindl said.
Producers and others should be doing more to tell cotton’s story, he said. He pointed to Under Armour’s old slogan that “Cotton is the enemy.”
“And we allowed that,” he said. “Should we be doing more? Heck yes.”
Amy Bickel can be reached at 620-860-9433 or [email protected].