All Is Not Lost: Buy American, pt. 4

All I had to do to answer my own question was basically walk out the front door and down the street. I walked over to College Ave (local retail/restaurant zone) at lunch today (I was strenuously working from home and needed the break) and walked into the first clothing store I saw. Most of the clothes at Bella Vita are made in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, although the woman at the counter said it was pretty challenging to find clothes where the material is also made locally or even in the U.S. She said that a lot of clothing makers who want to be "local" do look for American-made fabric, and that they find most of their local goods on Etsy. One of the clothing lines there was Modaspia, which is made in the Sierra foothills in Cali.

A few stores down, Atomic Garden had quite a few American- and California-made clothes. I got a dress and a sweater by Stewart + Brown (made in LA). They also carried Podolls ("Grown and Sewn in the U.S.") and Prairie Underground (made in Seattle). They also carried Clary Sage, which seems to be organic workout clothes, "grown and sewn in Northern California."

I then tromped further along College, and stopped in at Crush on College. I got a cute sweater for $50. It was made in China, as was most of their stuff. I felt 30 seconds of guilt about that, but then a part of me felt better knowing that at least I was making a conscious choice. I could buy my guilt away, I guess. Anyway, that did send me to Atomic Garden to buy the items I had been waffling about. I also stopped in at Cotton Basics, and learned that their clothes are made in the U.S. - even better, Oakland - and sold at three Bay Area stores.