History

Know Your Clothing was created by TS Designs, a wholesale screen-printing company since 1978. During the 1990s, when the textile industry began to move overseas they had to make a change in order to compete with the low cost of foreign production. 

Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, Profit

TS Designs President, Eric Henry, became an early adopter of the triple bottom-line business model of “people, planet, and profit.”  They were the first company in NC to become a certified Benefit Corporation (B Corp), and are the longest standing apparel B Corp, verified to meet higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance.

Where Your Clothing

In 2008, TS Designs began sourcing their cotton directly from the farmer with their Cotton of the Carolinas t-shirt line. This facilitates its own manufacturing processes and that is when Where Your Clothing was born — a supply chain tracking system using QR codes printed on the neck label of each shirt. 

Being able to track the supply chain of a garment gives people a deep understanding of where their clothing comes from. They get direct information about the farmer, ginner, spinner, knitter, cut and sewer, fabric finisher, and where it was printed and dyed.

This allows consumers to make educated decisions about where to buy clothing based on their beliefs.

REHANCE: Eco-friendly Screen Print Process & Garment Dyeing

TS Designs has a garment dye facility and has developed a unique printing process, called REHANCE, not found anywhere else in the world. The eco-friendly process makes it possible to screen print on white t-shirts, delaying the dyeing process until the end. This gives the customer more choice by not having to decide what color is needed in advance, and therefore vastly reducing inventory.

Today

Know Your Clothing was created in 2023 as a means to continue the research and development TS Designs has started so the company can focus on its manufacturing efforts. It is a way for the community to contribute and make a difference in helping repair the broken apparel industry.

Apparel Clusters

Know Your Clothing is working to build apparel manufacturing clusters, similar to the Cotton of the Carolinas supply chain, that can be developed across the United States and the world. This will help combat overproduction and waste and allow local communities to build wealth while improving transparency in the apparel industry.

Natural Dyes and Natural Fibers

Developing scalable methods of natural dyeing and using only natural fibers will allow manufacturers to eliminate the use of polyester and other synthetic fibers and dyes, making clothing truly circular and reducing the amount of microplastics going into the oceans and our food chains.

Join Us on This Journey to Sustainability!

Know Your Clothing wants to combat overproduction and waste by bringing manufacturing and production to localized regions using natural dyes and fibers. Educating the consumer on the background of where apparel comes from is an imperative beginning to shaping the future of the apparel industry.

Croatan Institute, a 501(c) (3) organization is the fiduciary agent for Know Your Clothing.