US Denim Insiders Seek to Preserve American Heritage Looms

The demise of Vidalia Mills was hardly a surprise to most working in the U.S. denim sphere.

“I knew these guys are really in for a world of hurt,” said Pete Roberts, the founder and CEO of the “Made in USA” men’s apparel brand Origin USA.  

Roberts is plugged into the network of domestic designers, component manufacturers and business owners that have a personal and business interest in the future of Vidalia Mills, the vertical denim mill that opened in Vidalia, La. in 2018.

The property of Vidalia Mills is scheduled to go up for auction by the Concordia Parish sheriff’s office on April 9. The sale will include 81.87 acres of land which was purchased from the town in 2017 for $12 million, the 900,000-square foot former Fruit of the Loom distribution center that Vidalia Mills retrofitted for its manufacturing facility and numerous pieces of equipment. Presumably, the 40 American Draper X3 selvedge looms acquired by Vidalia Mills CEO Dan Feibus from the shuttered White Oak facility in Greensboro, N.C. is part of the package.

“I don’t know what happened, but it is such a shame that there aren’t more brands aware of the extra value of working and producing jeans with American-made denim fabrics. Especially in these times we must embrace and value craftsmanship and heritage that are so strongly attached to a company and country,” said Wouter Munnichs, founder of Long John. “America is denim, denim is America, so let’s hope there’s a chance to bring it back to life.”

Vidalia’s demise underscores the difficulty of sourcing for “Made in USA” products. “It’s unfortunate for brand owners like me and for the apparel industry at large in the United States, but hopefully there’s some lessons learned, and hopefully other people can pick up and push the ball a little further,” said Patrick Mate, founder and owner of Patriot Jean Co.

The Concordia Sentinel reports the mill owes approximately $32.5 million in principal, interest, and late charges as of Nov. 14, 2024 to the Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union and Greater Nevada Credit Union.

That amount of debt will make it difficult for anybody to step in and absorb Vidalia Mills. “It will be an asset sale. No one will probably buy any of it for the $30 million that the creditors have lost. The true dollar amount that they will take will probably be a lot less than that,” Roberts said, adding that the buyer will likely liquidate the machinery from the property.

Three years ago, Roberts recognized the writing on the wall. He and a group of individuals who are involved in American manufacturing agreed that they would wait for Vidalia to go bankrupt, as they believed that any further support or investment wouldn’t lead to a turnaround. In fact, they even discussed the possibility of a hostile takeover, feeling that the company was mishandling things so badly.

“We were like, [Dan] has already spent $70 million bucks. He’s not coming out of it. We just got to sit back and wait for him to screw the rest of it up, and we’ll go and swoop in and see what we can save,” he said.

Roberts compared the waiting game a 1796 U.K article that warned of “agents hovering like birds of prey on the banks of the Thames, eager in their search for such artisans, mechanics, husbandmen and laborers, as are inclinable to direct their course to America.”

“We were still an agrarian society; we didn’t have industrialization. We couldn’t make stuff. We just shipped raw materials to Great Britian,” he said. “That’s how I feel right now, I’m like a bird of prey just waiting to see what happens to make sure the shuttle looms stay in the U.S. I do not want to see it go overseas.”

The most important equipment in question are the Draper X3 shuttle looms, originally manufactured by the Draper Company in Hopedale, Mass. in the 1940s. As a “New England kid” with grandparents who were among the first wave of immigrants working in U.S. mills, Roberts has a deep connection to the looms. “I hope they stay in America and continue operating here,” he said. “I don’t want to see them shipped off to Japan or elsewhere. This is the last remaining heritage we have in denim manufacturing.”

And as a business owner, Roberts knows that having multiple fabric sources is good business sense, which is why he’s pursuing a joint venture to explore whether he can “put the pieces together and see if people are willing to come together” to secure the looms. While he’s uncertain if any one person is “willing to step up and spend millions of dollars on the whole thing,” Roberts envisions a plan where the looms are shared between him and a couple of other players in the denim market.

As the biggest customer of denim from Trion, Ga.-based Mount Vernon Mills, Origin keeps the most U.S. denim in America, cutting and sewing out of its own 170,000 square foot facility in Asheboro, N.C. Home to 267 employees, three 600-pound washers, three 100-pound washers and a production floor with seven active lines, Roberts said the plant is one of the last in existence east of the Mississippi that can produce jeans at scale. The facility sews 755 pairs of jeans a day.

However, Robert noted that relying on a single source for denim fabric as a “Made in USA” jeans brand creates a “single point of failure.”

That’s what led him to explore what Vidalia had to offer to begin with. The opportunity to expand his supplier network, combined with Vidalia’s proximity and its acquisition the sentimental shuttle looms, made the prospect of working with the doomed mill appealing on paper.

The vibe was off from the very beginning, though. “When I went down there and met with the owner, I just knew something was a little bit off. I didn’t trust what they were doing and after spending a couple days down there, I could tell they bit off way more than they could chew. I knew they were going to go bankrupt. They couldn’t sustain what they were trying to do.”

To be a fully vertical denim mill with in-house spin requires a right-sized facility and a knowledgeable workforce at each stage of production, not to mention cash. Roberts said Vidalia lacked it all.

“There’s a lot that goes into each one of those components, into carding and roving, into spinning, into dying, into weaving. And trying to bring back everything all at once with limited cash, using other people’s money in this massive space… it was kind of a pipe dream,” he said.

Additionally, potential clients were alarmed by the idea of relying on a green workforce that has never woven denim to deliver quality and consistent fabrics.

“I’m a man of vision, don’t get me wrong,” Roberts said. “I love taking risks. I think being a little naive is important for that too. But it was too big an undertaking and not the right person running the show.”

Roberts is visiting Vidalia this week to meet with appraisers. He will be joined by the crew working on his docuseries about “the true history of denim.”

“I’ve been all over the world, tracking down so much cool stuff. But this is part of the story too, right? It’s the heritage that we once had and the quality we once made, and why it got lost to fast fashion,” he said. “These looms represent a slower pace, when quality goods were made and built to last a lifetime. So, I think it’s important.”