Thought you'd like to know about our favorite Made in USA Jeans!

I’m Victor Lytvinenko. My partner Sarah and I were inspired by three things when we started Raleigh Denim. One was winemaking. Another was Outkast(yes, the hip hop duo). And the third was old world European fashion houses.

Why wine? It has a purity and honesty that begins with a winemaker’s hands and dirt and is completely singular of their place and perspective. Wines made next door from the same grape varietal by a different winemaker will taste different. I have always loved this, so we wanted to do the same thing with denim. We make our jeans with machines I searched out and rebuilt myself, and from patterns we drafted by hand and revised literally hundreds of times. We sourced fabrics we designed ourselves and milled 60 miles away exclusively for us on American Draper X3 fly shuttle looms from the 1940s.

 

The result is completely singular. Unlike any other jean.
Next, Outkast. When they started in Atlanta, the entire hip hop world still revolved around East Coast and West Coast, but they knew they could do something different and just as good if not better than anyone out there.
They had something to say and we did too.

When we started, there were a lot of people saying that we couldn't "do fashion" in NC, that we had to go to NYC or London or Paris or LA. But we didn't want to “do fashion,” we wanted to make better and more beautiful things in a new way. So we came out swinging for the fences.

And last of these core inspirations is the old-world European fashion houses. When these houses were dominant, they had the best designers in the world and the best crafts people. The designers didn't have limits because the people making their garments were so skilled. The idea of knocking off some of those things was a joke, because no one else could replicate it. 

This really resonated with us and it’s the reason we decided to build our own factory, train our own jeansmiths, and make the best jeans we can dream of. 

We spent years learning about sewing machines and techniques. Driving up to the mountains of NC to sit with retirees in their garages working on machines and hearing stories of the old factories. Searching out old machines from Craigslist, eBay, and factory liquidations — then rebuilding and retooling them to produce the stitch we wanted, often times by creating new parts for the machines. We designed and build a factory we could harness as a tool to achieve the jeans we wanted. Jeans that were completely singular to our place, our hands, our hearts, our machines and our minds. That honored history of denim production in NC while looking forward with modern fits and details. Our desire to support this kind of singularity is also why we hand sign every pair and edition numbered the leather patches too.