WHY THE COTTON MATTERS
Yes, we know. Another clothing company talking about its cotton.
Apparently, you can't sell a T-shirt anymore without telling everyone its life story. Where it came from, who made it, how it was dyed, how far it traveled, and whether someone played it soothing music along the way. Fair enough.
But here's the thing. Before LANDOVERLAND, I spent a long time on the image production side of the fashion business. I've worked with a lot of clothing. I've handled the expensive stuff, the cheap stuff and just about everything in between. I've tried more fabrics, fits and versions of the supposed “perfect T-shirt” than anyone reasonably needs to.
And after all of that, this is where I landed. A T-shirt is just a T-shirt.
But somehow, it matters so much.
It's the thing you wear constantly. The thing you pack without thinking. The sweatshirt you throw in the back of the truck. The hoodie you grab when the sun goes down. The good ones soften, fade and get better. The bad ones twist, shrink, pill and eventually find their way to the bottom of a drawer.
At LANDOVERLAND, we decided that the clothes you wear the most should probably be some of the best clothes you own. So when we went looking for someone to make ours, we didn't look for the cheapest option. We looked for the right fabric, the right weight, the right construction and people who still cared about making the whole thing properly. Eventually, we found an American manufacturer doing something increasingly uncommon in the clothing business:
Making really good clothes, really well.
And after spending all those years looking for the “perfect T-shirt,” it turns out there wasn't much of a secret.
It starts with what it's made from.
So, yes. We're going to talk about the cotton.
MADE CLOSE TO HOME
Some of our favorite LANDOVERLAND pieces are knit, cut, sewn and garment-dyed in Los Angeles. That may sound simple. In clothing, it really isn't. A typical garment can rack up some serious frequent-flyer miles before you ever put it on, with cotton grown in one country, spun in another, made into fabric somewhere else and sewn somewhere else again.
Ours take a much shorter trip.
Our manufacturer keeps fabric development and garment production close to home in Los Angeles, where craftsmanship and quality control stay close to the finished product. Is it the cheapest way to make a T-shirt?
Nope. That's kind of the point.
BETTER COTTON STARTS WITH THE FIBER
Cotton is natural, breathable, durable and comfortable. It's also a crop that requires real resources to grow, so how it's sourced matters. Our manufacturer took a different approach.
The yarn used in our EcoJersey and EcoCycle fleece combines 50% recycled cotton with 50% more responsibly sourced cotton. The part we really like? It's still 100% cotton.
No plastic fibers added to make the sustainability math look prettier. Just cotton, sourced more thoughtfully. Recycled cotton gives existing fiber another life while reducing the need for new material. It's a pretty simple philosophy, and one we believe in:
Use what already exists. Make it well. Keep it around.
MADE TO FEEL DIFFERENT
You can feel the difference before you ever read the label.
Our Legacy Tee uses a substantial 6.5 oz cotton jersey, with a slightly wider body and proper side-seam construction. Our sweatshirts and hoodies use heavyweight fleece with real structure, weight and staying power.
These aren't disposable basics.
They're the T-shirts you keep reaching for, the sweatshirt hanging by the door, the hoodie thrown in the back of the truck and smashed in your backpack every weekend without much thought.
We don't expect them to stay perfect. We expect them to get better.
WHY THE COLOR ISN'T PERFECT
Good. It's not supposed to be.
Many of our pieces are garment-dyed, meaning the finished garment is dyed after it's been cut and sewn. The process creates subtle variations in color and gives each piece a little character from the start. Then you take over.
The color settles in. The fabric softens. The edges fade. Eventually it starts looking less like the one we made and more like the one you own. Think old jeans, a favorite canvas jacket or that sweatshirt you've somehow managed to keep for fifteen years.
Perfect is overrated. Worn-in is better.
THE FAST FASHION PROBLEM
Somewhere along the way, clothing got really cheap. Maybe a little too cheap. Fast fashion made it possible to produce enormous amounts of clothing, incredibly quickly, at prices that make it easy to buy more, wear it less and replace it without thinking much about it. We're not interested in that race.
LANDOVERLAND is small. We produce deliberately. We obsess over fabric, construction and where things are made because we think the stuff you buy should stick around for a while. We don't need you to own ten sweatshirts.
We’d rather make the one you always grab.
BUY LESS. BUY BETTER. WEAR IT MORE.
We're not going to pretend making new clothing has no impact. It does.
Cotton takes resources. Dyeing, manufacturing and shipping do too. There's no magic T-shirt that somehow avoids all of it. So we focus on the choices we can make better. Recycled cotton where it makes sense. Natural fibers we actually want to wear. American manufacturing when we can support it. Substantial fabrics, classic shapes and clothes that aren't designed with an expiration date.
That's the thinking behind the LANDOVERLAND Legacy Tee, Harbor Hoodie and our American-made sweatshirts
They're not the cheapest basics out there. They're not supposed to be. They're made to be worn, lived in, washed, faded, packed, unpacked and worn some more. Buy less. Buy better. Wear it more.
One-of-a-Kind goods for the One-of-a-Kind Man.
THE LANDOVERLAND SALE
So, after everything we just told you about why these clothes cost more to make, we're putting them on sale. Smart business? We'll see.
We're making room for what's coming next, which means selected LANDOVERLAND pieces are available right now for less than we'd normally like to sell them for. Same American-made construction. Same heavyweight fabrics. Same cotton. Same obsessive standards. Just a better price for a limited time.
If you've been thinking about the Legacy Tee, Harbor Hoodie or one of our American-made sweatshirts, this is the time. Buy the good one. Wear it for years.