Tired of wearing uncomfortable aprons, this restaurant industry veteran decided to make her own.
Ellen Bennett, CEO of the stylish apron line hedley & bennett, is always looking to improve. Whether it’s the aprons worn by chefs and butchers or florists and barbers, innovation is at the forefront.
And she's also looking to Keep it Made in America, as all hedley & bennett aprons are handmade in Los Angeles.
Bennett’s apron-making journey began while working as a line cook for Los Angeles restaurants Providence and Baco Mercat. She found that the chef coats and aprons she wore were often hot, uncomfortable, wrinkled and overall not pleasing to wear. Fed-up with not having a proper garment to cook with, she vowed to design an apron that would be durable, comfortable and have features strategically placed for a chef’s specific needs.
“When cooking in a kitchen, you want to feel great about what you’re doing everyday – you want to raise the mood with pride for your uniform which helps with the cooking process,” Bennett says.
With comfort in mind, Bennett's aprons all have adjustable straps with brass hardware, top chest pockets with specific designs for carrying trade tools, bar tack reinforced pockets to prevent ripping, and one-inch fusible interlining at the bottom of all aprons to prevent curling. And they've proven to be popular, as chefs in restaurants across the country now wear hedley & bennett aprons. The Alliance for American Manufacturing team even found one at our local butcher, Red Apron.
Bennett designs only with the finest materials she can find, and strives to create jobs in Los Angeles, keep her business eco-friendly, and be an advocate for buying American (the more local, the better). To Bennett, everything stems from a decision to be conscious, a decision to be good to her employees and a decision to be American-made. As she says:
“We are striving to be a huge company to offer jobs here in America. You don’t have to go to China to make a profit. If we could do our part to help the American economy in America, than we do it.”
Bennett loves buying products from other local makers because she knows how much effort and work goes into a product. There is so much more detail and quality in those products and to her, it’s nice to be able to support local manufacturers, she says.
Recently, hedley & bennett also started to recycle its fabric, using it to make new products or donating it to local design schools. The company also is now using all-recycling packaging in efforts to be more sustainable.
Bennett’s reasoning?
“I want to make an impact to the world through my business,” she says. “We started from the ground up, and we are actually living the American dream.”