White Oak Denim: How a Southern Cotton Mill Became the Last Bastion of American Made Selvedge

White Oak selvedge denim from the Cone Mills Company is something of legend in the heritage world, but few know exactly why. It’s often talked about as a superior fabric than other styles of denim, but this isn’t entirely the case. White Oak has a history stretching back before the first formalised jeans were even introduced, and their status comes largely from this incredibly ric heritage, but also the tragic story of their fall from the worlds largest denim supplier, to a niche selvedge producer, barely hanging onto life. With special thanks to Dr. Sonya Abrego for supplying us with her dissertation, ‘Cone Mills Denim: An Investigation into Fabrication, Tradition, and Quality’, and the founders of Tellason, Pete Searson and Tony Patella for chatting to us about their experiences during the final years of the mill, let’s discover the history of this America institution.

How White Oak Became America’s Favourite Denim Producer:
In 1891, brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone formed the Cone Export & Commission Company, a decision likely spurred by their time working as travelling salesman for their father, Herman Cone. During their time working for Herman, the brothers developed close relationships with many textile mills in the south, and within just a few years of establishing their company, were trading products from just under 90% of all Southern mill owners. Attempting to capitalise on their new success, the Cone’s began building their own mills in the Carolinas for the specialised production of denim and flannel, moving quickly to create new partnerships and contracts. I 1905, unknowingly, the brothers would open a mill to outlast the others, becoming not only the last bastion of their history in fabric production, but also a mill often regarded as something of legend.

The White Oak Mill was a sprawling complex that’s shell still sits on the outskirts of Greensboro, North Carolina. Specialising in the production of denim, it its height, the red brick factory housed over 3000 shuttle looms, and by 1910, only five years after its opening, White Oa was the largest producer of denim in the world, creating over a third of the globes entire denim supply. The mills sudden growth turned Greensboro from a town to a city within a decade, and quickly positioned it as the centre of the Southern textile industry. White Oak then began supplying ‘the big three’ jeans makers, the first of which was Levi’s, who signed on in 1915, an who used the mills denim for the very first 501’s.

With the mills popularity among clothing companies skyrocketing, White Oak made the decision to begin marketing themselves directly to consumers as jeans transitioned form workwear to casual fashion. Now that flannels and denim overalls were more acceptable to wea in day-to-day life, the company coined the slogan ‘Cone Makes Fabrics That People Live In’, a decision that would begin a unique, direct to customer relationship with Cone Mills. Now recognised for their sturdy, well made fabric, shoppers began looking for the White Oak label on their clothing, and the logo became synonymous with American-made quality. The 1950s and 1960s saw the mill at their most influential, but the tide was turning, and things wouldn't be s secure for much longer.

The Decline of Cone Mills and The Survival of Selvedge:
It was clear things were changing in the 1970s as the textile industry began to move overseas, taking advantage of cheaper production on account of more relaxed labour laws and lack of unions. Cone Mills directly suffered from this, and to make things worse, denim’ widespread use had prioritised cheap production rather than quality fabrication. By 1985, after a hostile takeover of the Cone Mills Company, White Oak had disabled all of its original selvedge Draper looms, rendering the mill functionally incapable of producing selvedge. For years, customers had been feeling the difference in quality, and the decision of White Oak’s new owner to tie themselves to a fast fashion market, though necessary for their survival, ultimately became the reason it would have to shut down.

At the same time White Oak was shutting down it’s selvedge looms, the Japanese denim collector Shigeharu Tagaki was creating his first jean, the DO-1. Inspired by the golden age o denim, the jean took inspiration from Tagaki’s collection of mid-century clothing, and would become the very first product to be sold through his brand, Studio d’Artisan. This obsession ove American vintage wasn’t a rare sight in Japan in the late 80s, with the countries youth becoming drawn to the rebellious look of 1950s media. Strangely, as selvedge denim began to die in the United States, it was being completely reborn across the Pacific.

Perhaps seeing the tide, modern western jeans companies began experimenting with bringing back selvedge. In 1995, both Levi’s and Ralph Lauren created their sub-labels LVC and RRL, which specialised in reviving mid-century cuts and vintage clothing with an onus on quality. What was happening in Japan seemed to have spread to America, and White Oak seized this opportunity to fill a niche. Pulling the only few still-functioning Draper looms from storage, the mil reintroduced selvedge in 1997, and quickly saw themselves inundated with new orders.

White Oak’s Short Lived Rebirth and Continuing Legacy:
Finding themselves as one of only four companies still producing American-made selvedge denim, White Oak leveraged it’s incredible history to recapture some of the ground it had lost in previous decades. Though selling a niche product, the mill’s expertise and sought after machinery made them favourites for some of the largest burgeoning heritage brands, LVC and RRL included, but this didn’t get them out of the woods completely. After years of decline, the Cone Mills Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2003, taking upwards of 1200 jobs with it. Thoug the loss of Cone Mills was a devastating blow to both the communities they operated in, and to the history of denim as a whole, White Oak was thankfully saved from this, and was kept functional as part of a buyout.

In this period of instability, it seemed almost a miracle that the mill was still operational. Speaking to Tony Patella, the co-owner of Tellason, he described that the selvedge area of the mill was a tiny corner of a much larger factory, seeming to work at breakneck speeds to produce the denim needed on such few operational machines. Tellason, the San Francisco based jean-maker established in 2008, was one of the champions of White Oak, sticking with them until the very end, but the writing seemed to be on the wall for the mill by the mid-2010s. Tony describes the shock in being told that Tellason was the 4th largest customer at White Oak in 2015. ‘Not just selvedge customer’, he emphasised, ‘just customer’. In 2016, Platinum Energy acquired White Oak and immediately moved to close the mill. It was announced that on December 31st, 2017, the very last mill capable of producing selvedge denim left in America, would close for good.

White Oak is still revered in many circles for the grade of their denim and the history of their fabrics, with jeans produced from the mills stock fetching collectors prices in good condition. Tellason, as one of the few brands to stick with White Oak until the end, has one of the best collection of Cone Mills denims, and pride themselves on leaving all their jeans raw so that the customer can bake in the fades themselves. Ultimately, the story of White Oak is a microcosm of the overall story of American production, and is just one of the countless mills that lost its history due to the outsourcing of fabrication and production. Though Japan upheld selvedge as a superior fabric, its hard not to hope that American mills will someday start producing the denim that originated within their walls.