Todd Shelton

[Todd Shelton]

My name is Todd Shelton. I have a men's clothing company based in New Jersey. A few notes about the company:

- We make all of our products in our NJ factory

- We established the factory in 2012, before that we made in other factories throughout the states

- Denim was the first category we made in our factory and is our best-selling category today

- We buy all of our denim from one mill in Japan, we've been working with them for 10 years

- We have 6 seamstresses, 3 people in the studio, and myself (we're a 10 person team currently)

- We have 55 sewing machines, one seamstresses cuts and sews a jean start to finish

- 4 of our 6 seamstresses do jeans 

- We also do all of our washing in-house

- We sell direct-to-consumer only, we're not sold in any stores

- Our specialty is fit, having a factory and being direct-to-consumer gives us a lot of flexibility to meet a guys fit needs

You can see our denim category here: https://toddshelton.com/jeans

A little about me...I moved to NYC from Tennessee in 2000 to start learning the direct-to-consumer clothing business (which back then was basically print catalogs) because I wanted to start a men's clothing catalog (I was inspired by the J.Crew catalogs as a kid). I took a job with a clothing catalog in Weehawken, NJ and went to Parson's at night - released my first product in 2002 and sold it on the streets on Houston St in Soho, Saturdays and Sundays. I left the Weehawken company in 2009 and went full-time into my company - and in 2012 started building our factory. That's my story.

I've been reading here almost daily for the past few months. I'm looking forward to becoming a part of this community. I plan on sharing some of the stuff we're doing here at the factory, and hopefully I'll meet some people here. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Thanks so much,

Todd   

 

 

[Todd Shelton]

Yesterday we released a new denim jacket design. It's not as traditional, we wanted something different. We reduced some the bulk at chest by removing pockets, and added interior pockets. We tweaked the collar and how it rolls. And we used a combo of tonal and contrasting stitching. If you have any thoughts, let me know. 

https://toddshelton.com/jeans/selvedge-denim-jean-jacket

[Todd Shelton]

Today we released a grey selvedge jean. The entire month of February, we're doing denim releases. This jean is made in USA (New Jersey) and the denim is from Okayama. If you have any questions about construction or fit, let me know. https://toddshelton.com/jeans/grey-selvedge-mids-jean

 

[Todd Shelton]

We had a write up done in Heddels this past week, you can learn more about us in this article.

[Todd Shelton]

Today we released a 14 oz selvedge stretch denim in raw. This denim doesn't look or feel like stretch denim to me. It's for a denim guy that's open to stretch. https://toddshelton.com/jeans/pro-stretch-raw-selvedge-jean

Our specialty is fit. We work with guys to find their right combination of fit options, then we deliver that fit consistently over time. We have lots of fit options, don't let that overwhelm you, cause you'll need them, and we can help you navigate them.

 

 

[Todd Shelton]

We did a series of tonal stitching jeans. Released 3 today. Two are selvedge, one is non-selvedge (fairly affordable for a made-to-order jean). At our brand, February is denim month, so we doing more denim releases than normal this month. Many of the jeans are on sale because they're initial production run products, which we group together to create efficiencies. You can see the denim category here. If you have any questions about the fit options, let me know, happy to help. 

 

[Todd Shelton]

2 things:

1) We're having an open house at our factory this Saturday, Feb 23rd, from 10 to 4 - if you're in the NYC area, please stop in. We're having beer and snacks and you can see how we make clothing. 

2) We released a tan selvedge jean yesterday. It's 11.5 oz, denim from Japan, jean made in New Jersey. If you have any fit questions, let me know. https://toddshelton.com/jeans/tan-selvedge-jean

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Todd Shelton

[babydials]

Thanks Todd, you were an excellent host.  I enjoyed the factory tour and the beer.  Look forward to breaking in my jeans.  Found the right spot for my pillow.

[Todd Shelton]

16 hours ago, babydials said:

Thanks Todd, you were an excellent host.  I enjoyed the factory tour and the beer.  Look forward to breaking in my jeans.  Found the right spot for my pillow.

The pillow station seemed to be a surprise hit with folks, that's funny - glad you found a home for yours. Thanks for coming out and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Consensus was people had a good time, and that makes it worth it. Which jean did you get? 

[kaloph]

A "long" time ago (2011?) I was in dad-jean mode and picked up a pair of washed, non-selvage Todd Shelton jeans due to the long inseam option. Customer service was great and the fit was just what I needed. I discarded them when I blew out the crotch -- shame I didn't know about darning back then.

[Todd Shelton]

1 hour ago, kaloph said:

A "long" time ago (2011?) I was in dad-jean mode and picked up a pair of washed, non-selvage Todd Shelton jeans due to the long inseam option. Customer service was great and the fit was just what I needed. I discarded them when I blew out the crotch -- shame I didn't know about darning back then.

Thanks for the note. 2011 was pre-New Jersey factory, those jeans were made in Los Angeles. We can do a lot more now with fit, and the make is 100% ours. Come back and see us sometime, but mainly I'm glad those jeans made it all the way to crotch blow out. 

[babydials]

6 hours ago, Todd Shelton said:

The pillow station seemed to be a surprise hit with folks, that's funny - glad you found a home for yours. Thanks for coming out and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Consensus was people had a good time, and that makes it worth it. Which jean did you get? 

Two pairs, a blue lean and a black basic.

[Todd Shelton]

If you have thoughts on slub cotton t-shirts i'd love to hear em. Good or bad?

Today we released two slub cotton t-shirts. We consider this release an Experimental IPR (initial production run) - we use experimental IPRs to test the waters on fabrics outside our core collection. 

This fabric is from Japan and we make the t-shirts in our New Jersey factory. We specialize in fit. If you have any questions on fit, let me know. You can see the shirts here: https://toddshelton.com/t-shirts

 

[Todd Shelton]

Today we released a slubby cotton overshirt. It's in an IPR offer for the next 5 days. We release new products with IPR (initial production run) offers which are about 20% off. They allow us to group larger production runs together in our factory, which makes things a little more efficient. You can see the shirts here: https://toddshelton.com/shirts

We do a lot with fit options. If fit is your deal-breaker, we can probably help you.

If you have thoughts on this style, let me know here.

 

[Todd Shelton]

I'm hearing more people say "pair of denim" instead of "pair of jeans". Is "pair of denim" acceptable language?

[UkeNo]

25 minutes ago, Todd Shelton said:

I'm hearing more people say "pair of denim" instead of "pair of jeans". Is "pair of denim" acceptable language?

NO!

[Todd Shelton]

It doesn't sound right to me either. I've been hearing it for a few years more and more, then this week I heard the dudes on the GQ podcast say it - and I'm wondering if it's gone mainstream.

[UkeNo]

Just now, Todd Shelton said:

It doesn't sound right to me either. I've been hearing it for a few years more and more, then this week I heard the dudes on the GQ podcast say it - and I'm wondering if it's gone mainstream.

I hope not,its bad sounding - by that logic i'm going to start to refer to my clothing by material - so my boots will now be a "pair of leather" and my shirts will be "cottons" etc etc

[Todd Shelton]

Pair of leather is hilarious.

[Todd Shelton]

PETA purchased enough shares of Levi's to qualify to speak at their annual conference. They want Levi's to stop using leather patches on jeans.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/levis-leather-patches-come-under-fire-by-peta

 

[chambo2008]

Really?! I'm sure with the meat industry they have some skin left over for patch's 

[Foxy2]

I wonder which models actually still have leather patches - most of LVC and...

[mpukas]

11 hours ago, Foxy2 said:

I wonder which models actually still have leather patches - most of LVC and...

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