Husband-and-Wife Team Crack the Premium Jeans Market
I grew up in a textile town and had a grandmother and other family members who worked in the mills for decades. Knowing the beating apparel manufacturing has taken, I always smile a little when I see businesses like Raleigh Denim thriving (even if I can’t afford a pair of the jeans). It’s run by the husband-and-wife team of Victor ’04 and Sarah Lytvinenko ’09. From today’s N&O:
Their passion is a large part of their success. Theirs is an ideal husband-and-wife business partnership, each bringing experience and a different style of energy and enthusiasm. She was studying at N.C. State University’s College of Design and was involved as a designer in the popular Art to Wear fashion show. He was an NCSU business major who taught himself to sew so he could make himself a pair of jeans that fit him the way he wanted them to.
They’re sourcing local, too, getting most of the cotton from the Carolinas and using shuttle looms that ran 60 years ago in Cone Mills’ White Oak plant in Greensboro:
Almost every part of Raleigh Denim is from North Carolina. The jeans are cut and hand-sewn by a crew in a production space in Stewart’s building on Bloodworth Street in Southeast Raleigh. The denim and labels come from Greensboro, the zippers from Oxford, the thread from Mount Holly, and the screen-printed pockets from Raleigh.
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[...] blogged about the Lytvinenkos here last [...]