Carhartt

A recent article about the workwear brand Carhartt in the NYT Sunday Styles section has me thinking weeks after I first read it. 

It seemed so out of place given the voguish surroundings of that section and that newspaper, yet it resonates.

The peg is that with the changing times, Carhartt has been forced to evolve. To reconsider how it goes to market. To rethink its products. Even to take another look at who its customer is. 

The story opens in a small town in rural Vermont where an Army-Navy store that provisioned canvas overalls to local tradespeople for a hundred years has gone out of business. 

It then radiates outward to workers and makers of all types, touching on labor, economics and fashion along the way. 

The consumer insights in the piece are superconsistent with my own observations. As Carhartt's customers have expanded from carpenters and farmers to UX designers and baristas, the brand has crossed over from workwear to streetwear. And has had to deal with cultural issues like authenticity and appropriation (similar to Patagonia's selling rock-climbing vests to investment bankers). 

But it appears that Carhartt has made the crossing. And there is no going back. So now they are just as good a fit in a Soho boutique, as in a Northeast Kingdom mom-and-pop. 

Many thanks to journalist Jasper Craven and photographers Tristan Spinski and Sarah Blesener. They have done a great job of explanatory dot-connecting with this piece. 

Please read it here.