The homegrown apparel manufacturer, which built an entire supply chain from the ground up, will offer a line of shirts for $12.98 at 1,700 Walmart locations.
American Giant announced on Monday that it is partnering with Walmart — yes, that Walmart — to sell a line of Made in America T-shirts, priced at $12.98 and emblazoned with the words “AMERICAN MADE,” ahead of the Fourth of July.
The red, white, blue, and gray shirts already are available online, and are set to be sold at 1,700 Walmart locations across the country. The shirts will be made with 100% American cotton, sourced from farms across the Southeastern United States, and made in factories in places like California and the Carolinas.
American Giant founder Bayard Winthrop wrote in an email to customers on Monday that the new partnership is “a major milestone.”
“While not made to the same specifications or unmatched standards of the clothes you’ll find on our site or in our stores, we believe the T-shirts we are selling through Walmart are a testament to what can be achieved when you combine the skill and dedication of the American worker, the determination of the entrepreneurs who employ them, and the foresight and vision of American corporate giants like Walmart,” Winthrop wrote. “Our mission remains the same: Build the best clothes in the world here at home at price points that work for all Americans. Today marks a significant milestone on that journey.”
The partnership between the two companies is striking.
American Giant got its start in 2011, at a time when U.S. textile manufacturing had been left decimated. Winthrop and his team set out to build some of it back, spending the next decade or so building out an entire supply chain from scratch. But the startup had to do that largely because of the actions of big corporations like Walmart, which spent the latter half of the 20th century encouraging the offshoring of U.S. production to lower costs.
In the 21st century, around the same time that American Giant was getting started, Walmart began an effort to source more of its inventory from the United States. We’ve always been critical of this campaign, given that the retailer still sells an overwhelming amount of imported merchandise.
But to its credit, Walmart has taken some steps to increase its U.S.-made product line. I did a quick perusal of my local Walmart and found a number of items with a Made in USA label, especially in sections like cookware. The chain also carries a wide variety of American-made flags, which is always great to see.
The partnership with American Giant may prove to be an inroad that will help Walmart begin to offer more Made in America apparel, which is one section of the store where I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t imported. Or, it may ultimately prove to be a one-off partnership, with the retailer deciding to stick to its tried-and-true business model of selling imported stuff at the cheapest possible price point.
The ultimate outcome will depend on customer response.
In public opinion survey after public opinion survey, Americans say they want more Made in America options. We hear all the time from people looking to find American-made items; it’s why we put out our annual Made in America Holiday Gift Guide and maintain the Made in America Directory.
But there’s also no doubt that American-made products cost more, especially in apparel, where bad players like SHEIN are able to sell T-shirts at dirt cheap prices. And while the American Giant T-shirts are priced much cheaper than usual, $12.98 is still more expensive than some T-shirts sold at Walmart.
For its part, American Giant has quite successfully found a customer base willing to pay for American-made quality; just consider that American Giant sells a T-shirt with a similar design to the Walmart ones for $60 on its own website. And remember that it was the American Giant hoodie, dubbed the “Greatest Hoodie Ever Made” by Slate, that first put the company on the map — those hoodies are now priced starting at $80 for the lightweight version, with versions made with thicker materials priced at $148.
The $12.98 T-shirts at Walmart, then, are a steal for an American Giant product, even if they won’t be the same exact quality as the main brand. It strikes me as similar to other partnerships between high-end designers and retailers, like the capsule collection between Target and the legendary Diane von Furstenberg that debuted earlier this summer. Such collections offer a way for more people to access a higher-end brand.
However, the Walmart-American Giant partnership does not appear to be intended to be a one-and-done collaboration. The press release announcing the partnership specifically notes that the T-shirts are the “first American Giant products produced for Walmart,” which indicates that more are forthcoming.
I’ll admit that I’m a bit cynical about this collaboration. Walmart led the way in sending U.S. factory jobs and production overseas, and the brand continues to heavily rely on imported goods. And sure, there’s a lot of political momentum to encourage domestic manufacturing now; if the pendulum began to swing the other way, would Walmart still see this partnership as worthwhile?
But that’s not where things stand right now — and there’s no doubt that Walmart selling American Giant apparel is a really big deal for Made in America. If this works and American Giant ultimately expands its footprint in Walmart stores, it really could be a gamechanger for the American apparel manufacturing landscape.
As Winthrop told the Financial Times: “There’s a lot of skepticism about whether you can build up more supply chains at scale in the US. What gets rid of that is a purchase order.”