OUR COMPANY
Anvil. A Century of Innovation.
Anvil, whose original tag line for over a century was "Hard to Beat", is now a leading apparel brand primarily serving the imagewear and private label markets. Anvil offers over 70 styles of sportswear and accessories in 80 colors, including 17 eco friendly styles in fibers such as organic cotton, recycled cotton, transitional cotton (or cotton in conversion) and recycled polyester from PET bottles. Anvil was recently ranked the 6th largest organic program in the world by the Organic Exchange.
Anvil, a company you can believe in.
Corporate responsibility. Those are words we take very seriously. At the heart of Anvil's mission is our commitment to helping make the earth a better place to live and work. We understand that manufacturing and business inherently have an impact on the planet, and it is our goal to minimize that impact. And we believe that any responsible company must be concerned about the preservation of the precious natural resources on which its own future — and all of ours, really — depends. Anvil also believes in being a good neighbor. We strive to create a safe, fair and honest environment in which our employees can work. But we also care about what happens to them when they go home. So we work hard to improve the communities in which are facilities are located, and give back to the people who help us create our products. And to back up our initiatives, we also offer ecologically responsible merchandise. For more information on Anvil's Corporate Responsibility, visit anvilcsr.com.
A little History
1899. James Cagney and Fred Astaire are born. Bayer registers aspirin as a trademark. A Norwegian inventor patents the paper clip. Henry Ford incorporates the Detroit Automobile Company. By this year, the industrial revolution has transformed the world’s economy, and the US is at the center of it all, with thousands working in factories, manufacturing everything from steel to soap. It was against this backdrop that the very first product to carry an Anvil label is rolled out—work uniforms. With the tagline “Hard to Beat,” the company (which until then had been operating under another name, making undergarments) manufactured pants, overalls, shirts and jackets to fit short, regular and tall sizes; advertisements proudly proclaimed “work garments are so satisfactory in wear, four modern factories are required to meet the demand.” One of those factories was located in High Point, North Carolina, today known as the furniture capital of the world because it is home to so many furniture manufacturers and retailers. It was in this era that a brand that today still stands for quality and innovation was born.
Me and My Anvil
Ernie Rome, 69, retired in 2003 after working at Anvil for more than 40 years. This is one of his earliest Anvil memories.
“These are a pair of Anvil overalls I wore when I was about four or five. When I grew out of them, my mother folded them up and saved them. It was about 1943 and we were living in Caroleen, North Carolina, during World War II. To say the least, times weren’t plentiful. That meant I wore those overalls a whole lot! Years went by, I was grown up and married and working for Anvil, when my mother was digging through the house and found them. My wife and I took a close look at the label and saw, for the first time, that it said Anvil. I thought, Well who would have thought Anvil would touch my life twice like that.”
Straight talk from our CEO
Q: Why is social and environmental responsibility important to Anvil?
A: Simple: it’s not only the right thing to do, it’s good for business. Our company and, yes, our bottom line benefit from doing things to help make the earth a better place in which to live and work. Employees feel better about working here, they stay with us longer, and that invariably helps our production. Our customers feel good about showing support for a company that’s responsible and stands for something. The incentives are very real.
Q: Do you really think such efforts can impact the company’s bottom line?
A: Absolutely. We’ve seen it happen to Anvil. Our Organic and Recycled lines have performed beyond our wildest expectations, and we expect them to grow even more next year. That’s a direct result of our taking a step back and saying, We want to do the right thing. We also knew a lot of people in this world—and a lot of customers!—would appreciate it and want to support it.
Q: Do you worry that the popularity of anything eco-friendly is just a fad?
A: It’s definitely not just a fad, and I know it because Anvil’s expertise lies in seeing exactly when a fad tips and becomes a huge trend. We saw that the environmental sector was only going to grow. It provided an opportunity for Anvil to use its expertise in a new way, earn a return and do something about which we could all feel good.