Recently, we moved production to a new factory and I wanted to give you the full story behind this move and what it means for you and us. This was not your typical situation and I thought our customers may want to know the details.
Since the beginning, we have produced our products in two small factories located in the USA. These were smaller shops that did great work but were limited in size and production capacity. We’ve been blessed to have wonderful customers and consistent and growing demand for our products. But our US factories had trouble producing enough products to meet customer demand. As we were trying to work through those growth issues, two events happened that would require a change.
Essentially, both of the US factories shut down in the last several months. One of them shut down after over a century in business and pieces of it were sold off to a company in China. The other one, our main bag factory, experienced a tragic death of the owner and is now closing down. That one was a big blow to me personally. I had come to know the owner very well and had a great relationship with him. His death was a surprise and a very sad day for us.
While I always liked making our products in the US, the truth is, there are now essentially no factories left with the skill and capacity to do so. Even though our US factories were small, they were relatively large by US standards. So we couldn’t go to an even smaller shop and meet customer demand. And most smaller shops just don’t have the manpower and equipment to do the fine detail work we require. Nor could they help us expand our product line.
Fortunately, we were contacted by one of the world's leading luxury bag factories located in the Dominican Republic. It's American owned and operated with decades of experience in crafting some of the world’s finest leather briefcases and bags and were a perfect fit for our needs. I personally went to the factory and worked from there to help oversee the transition. It’s an amazing place filled not only with leatherworkers, but with specialists in different aspects of each bag. They have the manpower, skill and machines to do quality artisan work at a larger scale that will help us keep up with demand. It also allowed us to continue to upgrade and expand our product line. The amount of fine detail work we can now do is my favorite part.
We know the most important thing to our customers is that they receive a beautifully crafted high quality product that will last. And that is what we are laser focused on every day. The new factory furthers that core mission.
So out of tragedy came a true blessing, enabling us to move forward stronger than ever. We continue to source many of our materials from the USA. But most new products will be sewn at the Dominican Republic factory.
We’re still headquartered out of Franklin, Tennessee, where we design and test all of our products and provide the personalized customer service that we’re known for. If you have any questions let us know. Better yet, pick up one of the new products and see for yourself. Thanks for being a part of our story.
-Andrew