Welcome to the MADE*HERE NEW YORK™ website. I am really excited to tell you the story of how it all began.
I had designed sweaters for about 15 years (I am a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology- AAS Fashion Design, BS Textile Production Management). I designed for imports as well as domestic, but really loved working domestically in the knitting mills in New York. I left the industry years ago to raise my two daughters, working part-time jobs and always in a creative field. I still have some of the sweaters that I designed and my daughter decided to wear one (one that was made in Brooklyn). Constantly. She said "everyone loves this sweater." She got compliments all the time. My daughter basically challenged me.
“Mom, why don’t you make sweaters again?”
Whoa, such a great question. The decline in establishments making knitted apparel in New York is dramatic and sad. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 283 Apparel Knitting Mills in 1998, and there were 44 in 2011. Far too many knitting mills have gone out of business. I had tried in the past to call many of the knitting mills that I had worked with only to find that the number was no longer in service.
I needed to try harder.
After many hours on the phone, and many days “pounding the pavement”, (yes, I knocked on doors, and spoke into the microphones, asking “do you finish sweaters?”), I was hopeful. The exact knitting machine that made the original sweater was undoubtedly in a landfill somewhere; but there were new, better faster machines that could replicate the stitch. I found a knitter. I found a dye house. I found a finisher. Would they make a small order? Small orders are more difficult in production but the mills were willing to help me. What grew from that original small order came more requests for more sweaters. MADE*HERE NEW YORK™ is the start of something really great. Hope you like our product and support manufacturing in New York.
Each sweater comes with a handwritten tag with a different quote from a famous New York woman.
“Do one thing every day that scares you” –Eleanor Roosevelt
….and so I have
We hope you love our sweaters as much as we love making them.
Karyn Villante
Founder + CEO
