One sweltering summertime later on higher, Kevin Lavelle took a job in Washington, D.C. He tried to look polished at the function, but most days he was a sweaty, wrinkled mess and it showed on his damp, creased shirt. There had to exist a better way.

"I looked around for a brand using moisture-wicking, contraction-complimentary fabrics in their shirts," Lavelle explains at the Fast Company Innovation Festival. "Just to my surprise, there wasn't. So I decided to outset that company."

Five years later, Lavelle is the CEO of Mizzen+Main, a men's workwear brand that incorporates performance fabrics—the kind y'all might find in activewear—right into the push button-down and chinos. The kickoff two years running his company, Lavelle was a ane-human show, working around the clock to find the right materials and factories to brand the shirts, and building a website to sell them. It was hard work, so it was a expert thing that he was wearing his own sweat-deflecting shirts during the process.

Kevin Lavelle [Photo: Pedro Arieta]

The effort paid off. Today, the make is growing fast, quadrupling sales every unmarried year since it launched. That growth is set up to continue as Nordstrom recently started selling the brand in all of its stores. Information technology recently received an infusion of cash from Fifty Catterton–a private equity fund formed through the partnership of LVMH, Groupe Arnault, and Catterton–which is known for beingness very selective nearly the brands it funds.

Lavelle is part of a new wave of manner brands born on the internet, following in the footsteps of pioneers similar Bonobos and Warby Parker. But unlike many of its peers-—say, Ministry of Supply, M.Gemi, and MM.Lafleur—Mizzen+Master is an American-made brand.

[Photo: Pedro Arieta]

From the very first, Dallas-based Lavelle wanted to make sure that his burgeoning business would create jobs for people in this country. He scoured the U.Southward. for factories that still had expertise in shirt making. "It was hard piece of work," Lavelle says. "I did a lot of Google searches, and as you can imagine, wear factories don't take nifty SEO practices."

He eventually plant factories sprinkled around the state, from Brooklyn to the Bay Area, where shirt-making was however live, and he began working with them to make his modernized version of the classic dress shirt. He's even tried to source his fabrics from American mills, only that hasn't been possible since many of the most avant-garde technical fabrics are currently being fabricated in Asia.

[Photograph: Pedro Arieta]

It gives Lavelle groovy satisfaction that when those materials get in in the United States, he is creating dozens of jobs for American workers. "It'due south something that matters a lot to me, my staff, and my investors," he says. "We actually believe that if there is any style our concern tin can aid people in our customs, nosotros should absolutely exercise that."

Building manufacturing infrastructure here in the U.Due south. has taken a lot of work, including grooming workers to stitch materials that are unfamiliar to them. But Lavelle doesn't think that it is necessary to communicate this to his customer. On the Mizzen+Master website, there is a modest American flag on the upper left hand corner, and a link that says "Click Here To Create Jobs" that brings yous to a landing page where you tin can starting time buying shirts. But besides that, all of the make's marketing focuses on how comfortable and high-performing the shirts are.

[Photo: Pedro Arieta]

All of this is by design. Lavelle believes that almost consumers care more about whether a product is meeting their needs than where it was made. And in any case, he doesn't desire to be known for his contributions to the American workforce, just rather for innovating in the way industry. "Wait, I'm very proud of the fact that we're creating American jobs," Lavelle says. "But making products locally is not what will make this brand successful. What will brand usa successful is creating the all-time, most comfortable shirts on the market, and then that is what we are striving to do every single day."