USA-made and declared ‘the greatest hoodie ever,’ it sold a million. So why redesign it?

For Bayard Winthrop, it didn’t all start with a hoodie. It started with an idea.

About 15 years ago, Winthrop, who is in his mid-50s today, had a notion of starting a clothing brand manufactured entirely in the US that evoked garments he fell in love with as a kid, when much of Americans’ wardrobes were still produced by US workers in US mills and factories.

“I had this sort of overly simplistic idea of wanting to do an American-made, high-quality clothing company that was reminiscent of the great American brands like Levi’s and Red Wing and …Wrangler and Champion and Woolrich,” Winthrop told Retail Brew.

At first he considered launching this nascent brand, American Giant, with a US-sourced and -manufactured flannel shirt, jeans, or T-shirt. But with so many domestic clothing brands having moved their production offshore, the task proved Sisyphean.

“Back then, the flannel shirt and the denim just felt way too complicated to do as like one guy trying to start a company,” Winthrop said. “And the T-shirt didn’t feel substantial enough, so I almost backed into a sweatshirt as being the thing.”

Just the thing, as it turned out. After “eight near-death experiences along the way,” Winthrop finally lined up the cotton mills and US manufacturers to produce a hoodie—100% cotton, thick, sturdy, with metal zippers and grommets—which launched in February 2012 with a price tag of $79.

Sales for much of that first year were moribund, selling as few as 50 hoodies a month. Then the PR firm Winthrop hired initially (and retains to this day), LaunchSquad, managed to get a hoodie to a writer at Slate, where a headline that December declared, “This is the greatest hoodie ever made.”

Shortly after the story dropped, Winthrop got a call from a contractor working on American Giant’s e-commerce website.

“He was like, ‘We’re getting 20 orders a second’ or something fucking crazy,” Winthrop recalled. “And that changed everything.”

Soft landing: Today, American Giant has sold more than 1 million of those hoodies, and eventually added US-manufactured lines that included those Winthrop had considered launching with, namely flannel shirts, jeans, and T-shirts.

You’d think American Giant wouldn’t mess with the hoodie that catapulted the brand, following the adage that you “dance with the one that brung ya.” But the brand has done exactly that, and recently relaunched the hoodie.

The new version, which retails for $168, is still 100% cotton, all of which is US grown, and is still entirely manufactured in the US in what the brand calls a “tariff-free supply chain.” As before, the new version has a two-layer hood and reinforced panels at the elbows. But while the older version had an almost canvas feel that softened with washings (this reporter owns a couple), the new version is just as heavyweight but decidedly softer and more pliable, thanks to overhauling the way the cotton is knit, brushed, and napped, per Winthrop.

The original was “a really unforgiving fabric, and it doesn’t stretch it all,” Winthrop said. “It doesn’t fit particularly well because it’s so rigid.” The new version, on the other hand, is “upgraded and modernized, giving it a bit more drape and softness and flexibility.”

Still, Winthrop admitted that changing the original hoodie, “unforgiving fabric” and all, was an emotional rollercoaster.

“That sweatshirt is almost like a child of mine,” he said. “So much of my life went into that and it was so hard to get it produced that the idea of changing it at all was this agonizingly difficult thing…I just was totally paralyzed about the idea.”

Could the new hoodie be New Coke to those fans of the brand who have been evangelizing about the hoodie for the last 14 years?

“There will, I’m sure, be people that loved—and I love—that kind of gutsy, tough American quality” of the original, Winthrop said.

However, he added that when the brand tested the relaunched sweatshirt with consumer panels, the vast majority thought it was an upgrade.

“They put on the new fabric, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is just nicer and feels better on,” Winthrop said. “I’m sure there will be some of that, ‘The oldie is the goodie, and we want it back,’ but we’re feeling really good about the improvement of the garment itself.”