A Promising New Partnership

First-time meetings with potential suppliers are usually pleasant enough. It's usually a polite get-to-know-you type of meeting, with a mix of softball and hardball questions, exchange of business cards, and a "we'll call you" ending.

When we heard about Jim and Sandy Martin of Oshkosh, Wisconsin and their 3-year old business called Green 3 Apparel, we were as intrigued as our somewhat jaded sourcing brains allowed us to be. We had pushed out the meeting for weeks, because, you know, priorities.

I remember the day well because I was uncomfortably over-dressed having met with "the bankers" earlier in the morning. This is nothing against bankers, only against tucking in my shirt.

By the time Jim had left our office, Jody, Katie, and I were buzzing around the room like insects figuring out how we could partner with Green 3 as quickly as possible. So amazing was their story, so wonderful was their product.

They had everything we stood for under one roof. Organic cotton, fairly made products (in a USA factory to boot), a design aesthetic that was modern but not edgy, fabrics like butter, eco-friendly dyes, prints done at a facility powered by wind and solar?! And, often forgotten, years of experience making apparel. And yes, they were a mere 2 hours away from Madison in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (yes, it's a real city).

Sandy cultivated her green values first as a midwestern farm girl, then as an apparel industry insider, traveling the world and seeing first-hand the destruction caused to the environment, workers, and communities by the simple act of producing t-shirts.

Her heart told her there was a better way and we couldn't agree more. Here's a sampling of some of the Greenest Tees we could ever even hope to imagine...many more to come.


You can look at (and buy if you want) the women's tees here and the men's tees here.