America Is Officially Back in the Selvedge Denim Business

One of those reaching out is Kyle Moredocks, who recently got his hands on a sample of Mount Vernon Mills selvedge. Moredocks is the founder of an eponymous Portland-based brand that makes customized jeans, jackets, and shirts to order (his Cowboy Jean recently got a shoutout from Derek Guy). Because Moredocks’ concept is based on on-demand production, he doesn’t buy huge quantities of material, and that makes it difficult to meet the minimum orders of large textile mills. “If you can go straight to the mill and meet their volume requirements then obviously that’s easier. But if you’re someone our size making less than 100 pairs a year, it’s more challenging,” Moredocks says. At Mount Vernon, however, the new selvedge program is distinguished by being available to small brands like Moredocks and Manresa at minimums far below the industry standard.

“These [brands] are the ones keeping this thing alive—the romance and the stories behind these jeans, and they look for craftsmanship.” Harris says. “This is not cookie-cutter-every-yard- looks-the-same denim. This is handcrafted by artisans, and it’s different. This is the $300 Pappy Van Winkle, not the $25 Wild Turkey.”

Harris alludes to bigger deals with high-profile clients that he can’t name, but to anyone familiar with the recent surge of special-editions made from White Oak’s remaining American-made selvedge, it’s not hard to guess who the list might include. Mount Vernon is initially offering two standard sanforized (i.e. washed and pre-shrunk) denims: the Revere, a 13-ounce dark indigo, and a heavier 15-ounce Franklin. “We wanted to do old revolutionary names because we were doing something revolutionary,” says Harris. “Mr. Revere came and told us that the revolution was coming.”

Mike McLachlan’s prototype Manresa jeans cut from Mount Vernon selvedge.
Courtesy of Manresa

At Manresa, McLachlan is working through his last remaining yards of Japanese selvedge, and plans to release his signature 207 jeans in Mount Vernon Mills denim in the coming months. “We’ll make Mount Vernon 15-ounce during the colder months, and the 13-ounce during the warmer months,” he says. “Then maybe a field coat, maybe a barn coat, maybe a jean jacket somewhere down the line.”

In the meantime, McLachlan has been wearing his prototype Mount Vernon 207s every day. “They have a little bit more drape than a Japanese counterpart might, and they just feel comfortable as soon as you put them on,” he says. “I feel very lucky to be able to be wearing a pair.” McLachlan also boasts that as one of the first people in the world to have a pair of Mount Vernon selvedge jeans, he’ll have a head start on the fade competition that will inevitably ensue.

“I’m going to wear them every day, so nobody’s ever going to catch up to me in terms of my fade,” he says. “So I’m pretty proud of that too.”