Can the T-Shirt Be Perfected?

About 5 dozen folks misplaced jobs when Stitch Fix ceased operations on the manufacturing facility and mill in November, Mr. Ford mentioned. Some of them, he added, had been working on the websites for many years.

“All those skills would have been lost,” he mentioned.

By March, the amenities had reopened as Buck Mason Knitting Mills, and several other of the workers who had labored at them for Stitch Fix had been rehired.

The fabric mill in Shillington has began to provide materials for Buck Mason’s T-shirts and different tops utilizing cotton grown in California, Georgia and Texas. Albert Bareika, who was employed by Buck Mason because the mill’s knitting lead in January, mentioned there have been plans to launch a limited-edition T-shirt made with cloth produced on the facility on a Forties-era Singer Supreme machine. Its Singer Supreme machine is one of some nonetheless in operation, added Mr. Bareika, 66, who lives in close by Leesport, Pa., and had beforehand labored for Stitch Fix on the mill.

At the Mohnton manufacturing facility, some workers are answerable for reducing and stitching T-shirts, whereas others iron them by hand or package deal them for delivery. About 10,000 T-shirts are made there a month, Mr. Ford mentioned. “By fall, we aim to double the capacity,” he added. “The goal is to quadruple it.”

The manufacturing facility in Mohnton, a small borough in Berks County, Pa., produced hats and navy uniforms earlier than shifting to T-shirts, mentioned Mr. Pleam, who lives within the borough. During the amenities’ heyday, within the late Seventies, the manufacturing facility and mill employed about 100 employees, and the manufacturing facility made about 22,000 T-shirts per week utilizing materials from the mill, he mentioned.