August 4, 2025 · AlabamaETHICAL CRAFT AND PRODUCTION IN THE U.S. | WHAT IS IT WORTH?
The following excerpt was published in the Southern Cultures “Future of Textiles” issue, guest edited by Natalie Chanin.
What Is It Worth?
by Libby O’Bryan
After a career as a textile buyer and production manager in New York City’s Garment District and after seeing so many factories shut down and skilled workers lose their jobs to overseas competition, I am on a mission to preserve the skill of sewing in our domestic manufacturing economy. For me, that means providing good jobs and a new model for production, as well as supporting the independent designer’s scaling production needs.
Since 2010, I have been the owner and CEO of Sew Co., an industrial sewing manufacturing facility in Asheville, North Carolina. I built a partnership with the Oriole Mill, a boutique industrial textile mill, forming two separate businesses that acted as a single vertically integrated manufacturing facility. The Western North Carolina community, with its industrial manufacturing history, has proven to be an ideal location for Sew Co. to embrace both craft and industry. I was lucky to have had veteran textile manufacturing workers teach me their methods and systems, and these skills have now been passed down to Sew Co.’s younger employees.
Our entire crew practices radical financial transparency to create a culture of agency and empowerment. As a founding partner of the Carolina Textile District (CTD), we work cooperatively with our local “competitors” to strengthen our industry collectively. The CTD has established an industrial sewing training program with our local community colleges and has founded an ancillary enterprise, Material Return, to address local, circular solutions to our region’s textile waste. We gratefully find ourselves embedded between this progressive manufacturing community and the vibrant craft community of our region, established by the legacy of Black Mountain College and organizations like Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and the Center for Craft.
We love living at the intersection of art, education, and industrial manufacturing. As a result, our team of skilled artisans focuses on quality and creativity. Because we pay a living wage, we are rarely able to make the most affordable bid. Instead, we compete on craftsmanship, ethics, and service.
Read the full essay on Project Muse, or purchase the full issue.
Trained in fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, business administration at the University of San Francisco, and fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Libby O’Bryan melds her hybrid background into a conceptual art practice. Her work has been exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center, South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art, Cameron Art Museum, the Penland School of Crafts Gallery, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Center for Craft.
Libby’s work with Sew Co. was featured in PBS’s Craft in America series—watch here.
Explore Libby’s designs through her clothing brand, Rite of Passage, and her art practice on her website.
Pictured above: A small batch of thirty blankets hanging in a gallery as part of Libby’s installation “What is it Worth?” Read more about the exhibit here.