The last craftsmen
In Seattle, sewing machines are still running. But not for much longer.
In the historic workshop in the SoDo district, the ranks are thinning. The seamstress positions that were the pride of the house are disappearing in waves. No dramatic layoffs, no announced closure in the Seattle Times. Retirements that aren’t replaced. Positions discreetly relocated, transferred to production lines on the other side of the world. Garment manufacturing job offers have disappeared from the careers site. What remains in Seattle is the headquarters, marketing, the showroom, the photo studio. The window dressing.
The know-how, meanwhile, is taking a flight. Heading to Dacca. Heading to Ho Chi Minh-Ville.
The numbers
In 2015, the brand manufactured about 90% of its products in the United States. It was still credible to speak of American heritage. To show the workshop. To film hands at work.
By 2025, the share of American manufacturing has fallen to 35%.
Thirty-five percent. In ten years, the proportion has reversed. What was the exception - producing elsewhere - has become the rule. What was the rule - manufacturing in Seattle - has become the exception.
The rest is distributed between Bangladesh (19%), Vietnam (15%), and a constellation of subcontractors in countries where labor costs a fraction of what it does in Washington State. The Klondike oilcloth is now sewn in Dacca.
The platform company
The owner no longer hides its ambitions. The word has been dropped in the specialized press: “platform company”. The stated model is that of large luxury conglomerates. Acquire brands with strong identity, pool operations, optimize margins, move upmarket in perceived value.
It’s a coherent strategy. It is also the exact opposite of what the Seattle brand tells its customers. One cannot simultaneously be a Pacific Northwest heritage workshop and a platform company with a portfolio of brands. The two stories are incompatible. One is true. The other is marketing.
The group already owns several brands. The Detroit watch brand, which has become a textbook case in storytelling - “Built in Detroit” on watches with Swiss movements. Carefully positioned lifestyle brands. Each with its narrative of authenticity, its local mythology, its displayed territorial anchoring. And behind it, the same group logic: centralization of purchasing, cost optimization, relocation of production.
The model is crystal clear: buy trust, monetize it, move on to the next. This is what large luxury groups do, but at least they don’t pretend to be local workshops.
The arithmetic
Let’s do the math that the brand doesn’t do in its press releases.
90% American manufacturing in 2015. 35% in 2025. The drop is 55 points in ten years. That’s about 5.5 points per year. If the trajectory continues, and nothing indicates it will change, the share of American manufacturing will fall below 20% by 2028.
Meanwhile, prices have not fallen. They have increased. An Original Briefcase is worth more today than in 2015, when it was manufactured in Seattle. It is no longer manufactured in Seattle, but the price doesn’t remember that.
The margin per product has mechanically exploded. Production cost down, selling price up. The difference does not benefit the customer. It benefits the owning group. It’s logical. It’s the platform company model. It’s just incompatible with the heritage discourse.
Seattle, ghost town
What is happening in Seattle goes beyond one brand. The city is losing its last industrial garment manufacturing jobs. Workshops that have been training seamstresses for decades are closing or emptying out. The textile know-how of the Pacific Northwest, which fed a chain of local subcontractors, leather suppliers, weavers, is disintegrating.
A brand of this size relocating is a signal for the entire ecosystem. Local suppliers lose a major customer. Young seamstresses can no longer find positions. The local supply chain weakens. And when there is no longer enough volume to justify a workshop, the workshop closes. When the workshop closes, the know-how disappears.
It’s irreversible. You can’t rebuild a textile industry with a snap of your fingers. Machines are sold for scrap or export. Buildings are converted into lofts for Amazon developers. Artisans change professions, open cafes or move to the suburbs.
The day a future CEO decides to “relocate” - for the press release - they will no longer find the hands, nor the machines, nor the suppliers. Seattle will have kept the name on the labels and lost everything else.
The Bangladesh paradox
19% of production in Bangladesh. That’s the figure that hurts.
Not because Bangladesh manufactures poorly. The country is home to factories that work for the biggest houses in the world, from high-end denim to technical clothing. Bangladeshi textile know-how is real and constantly improving. But when a brand that sells itself as American heritage at over 300 dollars a bag has a fifth of its production sewn in a country where the monthly textile minimum wage is around 110 dollars, there is a consistency problem. This is not a judgment on Bangladesh. It’s a judgment on the price charged to the customer.
Vietnam, 15%. Same logic. Competent factories, low costs, and a brand narrative that never mentions Dacca or Ho Chi Minh-Ville. On the website, it’s always Seattle, the forest, the rivers, the morning mist on Puget Sound.
The label, however, tells the truth. But you have to turn it over to read it.
What has changed since last time
In our previous investigation, we described erosion. Thinner fabrics, declining finishes, gradual relocation. The diagnosis was made, but the figures were missing. We saw the symptoms without being able to quantify the disease.
Since then, the erosion has accelerated and the data has come in. Manufacturing figures have gone from vague to measurable: 90% to 35%, in black and white. The group’s discourse has shifted from denial to claim. “Platform company” is no longer a suspicion, it’s a stated objective. It’s no longer a drift, it’s a plan.
User feedback confirms the trend. Customer service remains a point of friction, with lengthening response times. The repair program, long presented as the last line of defense, also shows signs of fatigue. Longer delays. More frequent refusals. The “forever” warranty is beginning to look like a promise that they no longer have the means to keep.
The community’s advice has not changed: buy vintage rather than new. What has changed is that this is no longer a purist’s opinion. It has become a broad consensus.
The word not spoken
There is a word for what is happening. A word that the specialized press hesitates to use, that brands refute, that owners find unfair.
Greenwashing.
Not in the ecological sense. In the heritage sense. Using the vocabulary of craftsmanship, the images of the workshop, the mythology of the founder, to sell products that have little to do with what these words mean. Making people believe it’s Seattle when it’s Dacca. Making people believe it’s 1897 when it’s 2025.
It’s not illegal. The label is compliant. No one is overtly lying. But the overall narrative, the atmosphere, the photos, the chosen words - everything is constructed so that the customer doesn’t ask the question. And when they do ask, the answer is on the label, in tiny print, inside the bag.
One could call it heritage-washing. Borrowing the prestige of the past to dress up the compromises of the present.
What remains
35%. That’s what remains of the promise.
35% American manufacturing in a brand that sells itself as the last bastion of Seattle’s outdoor heritage. 35% is one-third. Two-thirds are elsewhere. Dacca, Ho Chi Minh-Ville, and other cities that will never be found on the website.
The old pre-acquisition product remains a legend. Vintage pieces fetch record prices, precisely because buyers know that the new ones are not the same. This is the cruelest proof: the second-hand market contradicts the brand’s discourse. If the new was worth the old, no one would pay more for old.
The trajectory is clear. The word “platform” has replaced the word “workshop”. The percentage decreases every year. Jobs are leaving Seattle. Sewing machines are slowing down.
The first investigation made a diagnosis. This one makes a prognosis: at this rate, the Seattle brand will soon be from Seattle in name only. A name on a bag sewn in Dacca, sold with a photo of a Pacific Northwest forest.
And on the website, it’s still the forest, the mist, and the Klondike.