For the Ardmore-based fashion company American Trench, it’s all about looking sharp and staying stateside.
“We make some pieces of classic menswear that guys can identify with as super useful investment pieces,” says cofounder Jacob Hurwitz.
When the brand launched its first product in 2013, Hurwitz says he and cofounder David Neill were driven by their desire “to support the making of something beautiful” in the United States.
At the time, they used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to garner customers for their trench coat — a quality piece with real staying power. “You’re going to have it for 20 years,” Hurwitz says.
Today, American Trench sells hundreds of products, including retro socks, linen trousers and alpaca wool sweaters. Prices range from $14 to $849.
In 2024, American Trench did just under $4 million in sales.
Dheen Weening, the brand’s creative director, says American Trench has elements of “Americana military heritage” and draws inspiration from “traditions of tailoring, Ivy League and prep.”
American Trench also has a sub-brand, Orig. Equip., focused on “workwear- and sportswear- adjacent” clothing, Weening says.
Weening describes American Trench’s target audience as people who share its values — “people who are interested in making things with a lot of soul, ethically made, responsibly made, as local as possible and with a certain elevated kind of expertise.”
American Trench products are available online or at the brand’s Ardmore storefront at 15 East Lancaster Avenue, which opened in 2023. The clothing brand can also be found at major retailers, such as Nordstrom, Free People and Anthropologie, and at local Philadelphia shops, such as Franklin and Poe in Fishtown and P’s & Q’s on South Street.
While clothing materials are sourced globally, American Trench does all end-state manufacturing in the U.S., working with at least 30 manufacturing partners nationwide, including in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Hurwitz says he initially wanted to support American manufacturing because of the Great Recession of 2008, when the housing bubble burst. That crisis, he says, was exacerbated by the deceleration of U.S. manufacturing.
“The events that led up to the housing market crash, and thus, the stock market crash in ’08, to me, were caused by the closing of manufacturing facilities and then the redistribution of workers toward building houses,” he says.
In response, Hurwirtz made sure American Trench bolsters U.S. labor and craft.
Doing so, Hurwitz adds, is also more environmentally friendly than manufacturing products abroad. “We have laws in this country with standards for pollution, and all of our factories have to comply [with] them,” he says.
But U.S. manufacturing comes at an extra cost to consumers — one that Hurwitz says is worth it.
American Trench offers higher quality materials and garment construction, Hurwitz says, instead of competing with Costco or Walmart on price.
“We’re making stuff in the United States, which has a high labor cost, so what we make has to be really nice,” he says.
