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"American Flannel is a wonderful book--surprising, entertaining, vivid and personal, but also enlightening on the largest questions of America's economic and social future." - James Fallows, co-author of Our Towns The little-engine-that-could story of how a band of scrappy entrepreneurs are reviving the enterprise of manufacturing clothing in the United States. For decades, clothing manufacture was a pillar of U.S. industry. But beginning in the 1980s, Americans went from wearing 70 percent domestic-made apparel to almost none. Even the very symbol of American freedom and style - blue jeans - got outsourced. With offshoring, the nation lost not only millions of jobs but also crucial expertise and artistry. Dismayed by shoddy imported "fast fashion" - and unable to stop dreaming of re-creating a favorite shirt from his youth - Bayard Winthrop set out to build a new company, American Giant, that would swim against this trend.