Tucson-based Fed By Threads is a boutique clothing brand based on environmental sustainability and social responsibility. The company began as a small yoga studio that was producing T-shirts whose proceeds benefited a local food bank. As the focus moved increasingly toward the production of T-shirts, the owner increased revenues from $12,000 to $300,000 per year with the small-scale business.

The current owners acquired the business in 2016 and looked for ways to grow it further. Creative Director and co-owner Skya Nelson has been in the apparel business for 30 years. “I wanted to figure out how to grow the company,” he said, “but at the same time, find materials and manufacturing processes that were environmentally sustainable, with everything being American made. A critical part of the business model was to continue to support food banks, and we do that by contributing 7% to 10% of earnings – not profits, but earnings – to these charities.”

Nelson’s strategies have made the company wildly successful and set it on a path to make a big difference in the way American-made clothing is manufactured. “We source everything from within the country,” he said, “from the fibers to the dyeing, to the weaving, to the printing and cut-and-sew processes. We call it ‘from dirt to shirt.’ We also took great pains to construct our clothing with body diversity in mind, with inherent acceptance of the body types common in America today.