Jason Mackenzie writes in with news on Tennessee’s Pointer Brand’s return to glory…
In the orthodoxy of workwear, Pointer Brand is the Old Testament. The LC King Manufacturing Company has produced high-grade, hand-sewn denim in small batches in Bristol, Tennessee since 1913. They are perhaps the last company making traditional denim styles, in the US, in a purely workwear context. They still make Indigo Dyed, Hickory Stripe, and White Drill Denim in chore coats, overalls, and work aprons at rock bottom prices the American working man can afford. That’s why it was so distressing when our in-house rep Melody told me how their stitchers had gone to a one-week-on, one-week-off schedule, and that they’d even cut the air conditioning in the sweltering heat to save money. She assured me that Jack King, fourth generation president of LC King, was hard at work to keep the company rolling, and that things would get better.
Then I got a letter from Mr. King in November, describing what steps he was taking to make improve Pointer Brand. He had sourced a new, heavy weight (15 and a quarter ounce) denim from Mount Vernon Mills in Trion, Georgia that was one and a half times thicker than the previous denim they were using. And he was embracing the hardest principle in the apparel industry; he was going to keep the price hike to an absolute minimum. The coat might cost a dollar more, he wrote. For American made workwear, Pointer Brand’s prices are cheap at twice the price. The chore coat still retails for under $50.
The new Pointer Brand Rigid Indigo dyed denim Chore Coat is now available at Hilton’s Tent City in Boston, and online from Pointer Brand.
More looks at the Pointer Brand Rigid Indigo dyed denim Chore Coat after the click.
