Born Into the Stitch

Born Into the Stitch

What It Really Means to Be a 3rd Generation Garment Maker

Don’t get it twisted — being a third-generation apparel maker doesn’t mean it was handed to me. It means it was the air I breathed. The house I grew up in was a factory disguised as a home. You don’t choose that — it just becomes part of you.

Through osmosis, you start to see things other people never will. Not just fabric and thread — but fit, function, line, silhouette. You develop an eye. You don’t even know it’s special until someone else tells you they don’t see it.

My dad had me sketching line sheets by hand when I was five. Back then, if a buyer wanted to see your collection, you didn’t send a PDF — you pulled out a pen and drew it. If they liked it, you went to sampling. That’s how it worked.

Our toy room was turned into a mini production floor. Our toys weren’t action figures — they were sewing machines. By age eleven, I was already the sewing machine mechanic for the three-machine basement factory we ran out of our home.

It was in my blood, but it wasn’t enough to just inherit it.

See, when you’re born into something — whether it's farming, law enforcement, or garment-making — you eventually face a question: Do you carry the torch forward, or do you light a new fire?

After two generations ahead of me, I knew I had to do more than just repeat the past. So I spent 20 years in the industry. I learned everything I could — design, production, grading, sampling, wholesale, retail, private label, mass manufacturing. I saw it all.

And then I walked away from it. Because most of it is bullshit.

The fashion industry is 90% smoke and mirrors — selling "lifestyle brands" that prey on ego. Logos, flash, influencer gimmicks, fast fashion trash… all of it engineered to make people feel like they’re buying an identity.

I wasn’t interested in selling identity. I was interested in building motorcycle gear that satisfies the soul, not the ego.

That’s why I started Crank & Stroker. Not to build a lifestyle brand. But to go rogue. To take everything I’d learned — and everything I loved — and put it into riding gear made for the kind of people who understand machines the way I understand garments.

No gimmicks. No fluff. No logos. Just clean construction — tailored motorcycle gear rooted in fundamentals.

Has it been done before? No.

Will it be?

It already is.

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