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- Asheville was always a nice little town to live in,
but a lot of people left-- me included--
because there was not much to do, you know.
I guess it was, like, 25 ago years now.
The young people moved here and they infused life
back into the city.
And the craft industry started.
It just boomed!
[fiddle music]
- It is a community that believes in one thing,
and that's making, that's in using these.
We celebrate that.
What comes to mind when you're talking about the economy,
particularly, in this area
is really how important the craft community
is to the economy in west North Carolina.
I mean it is arguably
the largest concentration of craftspeople in the country.
- They did an economic impact study
in this region recently and discovered that
if all the individual artists worked for a single company,
it would be the largest employer
in western North Carolina.
- I think it has a lot to do with the original settlers here.
The earliest European settlers
were quite isolated living in the mountains
so there was a mentality of self-sufficiency.
So, in this area, women wove the fabric
that they needed for their homes.
And that history of, particularly, textiles
has survived
and continues to feed the economy.
[loom whirs]
The Oriole Mill is more like a craft art studio
than it is like most mills, at least in the United States.
Six Jacquard looms that we have up and running
have a different set up.
In some cases, a mill will have only one set up
and all the looms will be the same.
That's what you do
to support volume and commodity production.
We chose a very different approach.
- We've slowed down all our machines.
All our machines run at a slower pace
than they came at.
This is exactly counter to what industry is all about.
Industry is all about speed.
- I would say, yes, I'm an entrepreneur.
I'm a designer.
I'm an artist.
I'm a business person.
Ultimately, it all boils down to one thing.
I'm a hard worker and I love what I do.
Everyone here is creative.
In a start up, in particular,
you have to have people who can wear different hats
and in most mills you punch a clock and you do one thing
and you do only that one thing for 40 hours
and for some people that's their comfort level.
What I've found is the more creative the worker,
the more they appreciate being in a place
where they can really show
their competence and their versatility.
= I'm from a textile family
and that's how I became in the textile business.
I'm actually not a weaver.
I'm a overhauler.
I fix and repair the electronics and the mechanics
of the machine.
Basically, can tear one apart and put it back together.
But since we're a small crew, we have to multi-task.
So, I end up weaving and fixing on the machines,
which is good for me because I know when it tears up,
I know what's wrong with it
so I can run it at the same time.
Even though they're smart or intelligent machines,
they tell you everything,
you still have to have the skill set with the hands
in order to operate it.
[whistling]
- In addition, we have Libby O'Bryan,
who's the founder and owner
of Western Carolina Sewing Company.
And that's a full cut and sew work room
that's housed within the same building as the Oriole Mill.
And that has allowed me to collaborate with someone
whose expertise in sewing and construction
is unsurpassed.
- Sew Co. is a small-scale, high end
manufacturing facility for independent designers,
trying to preserve the skill of sewing
and domestic manufacturing here in the U.S.,
and really wanting to cater to that kind of designer
who has elevated style
and an elevated sense of construction and detail.
- So, what about the weight?
Is it getting too heavy?
Is there too much stretch on the bias?
My first experience with textiles or cloth
was helping my mom cut and sew our clothing.
Textiles was part of daily life out of necessity.
Her mother made all of their clothes out of flour sacks
so she has very strong memories
of going to purchase the next bag of flour
and being quite mindful on which pattern
they needed to purchase,
and they knew how many flour sacks it took
to make a particular dress.
- My grandma and my mother would make me everything
and that experience of
choosing the right buttons, choosing the fabric,
choosing the pattern
was what we spent our time doing
and those are my, you know,
fondest memories of childhood.
There was something about the clothes that I wore
having this history
that gave me more pride in those objects
and more value in those objects.
I think that's what I'm trying to get back at.
That real lived experience and that kind of...
loving labor.
I instill in my crew and in myself
is that, really, it's not about how fast we can do it.
It's how good we can do it.
Ad taking the time to really do things well
allows us to extend the life of what we're making.
I would love to see an Oriole Mill coverlet
on every bed in America.
I mean, I think it's like Levi's.
It should be like that.
It's a very American brand.
And it's one of those products
that is just... hearty.
- I think textiles are often under appreciated
because they are so much a part
of almost every moment of our daily lives.
Right at birth, we're wrapped in cloth,
or at least historically we were,
and for burial, we're wrapped in cloth.
So really, from cradle to grave,
cloth plays a very ever-present part in our lives.
Stephan Michelson is the reason that
the Oriole Mill exists.
Without his investment,
it could never happen.
What I bring to the equation is sweat equity.
My knowledge, my expertise,
and my willingness to do whatever it takes
for as long as it takes
to make this mill a success.
There are times when people tell me that I'm courageous
and I think, "That's a lovely thought
but I think that it's not accurate."
What comes to my mind is whitewater rafting.
There's a point when you're going through the rapids
where it's too late to say,
"Never mind, I've changed my mind.
"I don't want to.
I wanna get out now."
It's too late.
But I don't have a choice
because there's too many people depending on me.
During this period where Stephan and I
were starting to make progress
on starting a mill
coincided the decline of the textile industry.
For example, in the year 2000, in the spring of that year,
I would probably get one to two inquiries per week
of mills that were looking to hire designers.
By October of the same year,
within six months,
I probably had that many inquiries per week
of designers looking for jobs.
The collapse was really rapid and devastating.
- People had their life based upon the textile industry.
That would be their livelihood
and as that went overseas, of course, you know,
they had to change their livelihood and jobs.
It affected the whole entire town, you know.
- The push was so much on profit
and not so much on a longer view of the industry
that in some cases they set up manufacturing overseas
thinking that they could keep everything under control,
but if you're sending the design files,
the loom files overseas
those people are smart
and they can see what you're doing
and they can learn from it,
and there won't be too long a period of time
where they go directly to the buyer and say,
"I can cut out this middle person and do it for cheaper."
What they found often was that it really was
too good to be true in terms of
the ultimate bottom line.
- I think that's the death of the industry
unless we can bring up more people like us
to have small mills
in which they want to make fabrics.
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- I don't expect to see it resurrect in its full glory,
like it was before,
but this is a beginning.
- I hope that it'll come back in kind of more artisanal way
that are really doing
high level, high skill, high craft making.
- Our goal is always to make products
that are heirloom quality that will last multiple generations
and the truth is that it's only in recent history
that fabric has become a disposable item.
Historically, fabric was one of the things you inherited
and it had as much value as gemstones and precious metals
because of the time that was invested.
- Things have become so inexpensive and so disposable
that we don't really realize
the labor that goes into how those textiles are made
or how those garments are made
or how that parachute is made, or that hot air balloon,
I mean, anything that's sewn,
right, has all of this hand labor that goes into it.
Machines help us, but it's not, that's not the only thing. [laughs]
There's always a human connected to the machine.
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