The Ashland Shirt and Pajama Factory was founded in the mid-1930s, in Ashland, Pennsylvania after a man named Gitman moved his family to these Appalachian Mountains away from New York City because labor was cheap, land was cheaper, and he could open a factory literally in his basement.

I came to know about this factory because in the mid ‘00s, I was working as an assistant to a famous clothing designer…and she was wearing a shirt by another famous designer and she asked me to find out where the shirt was made. I called the office and they gave me the answer, “Gitman Brothers”.

This shirt [that I brought tonight] was made [for] my father in 1989. As a prize to himself [for being promoted] he had some custom shirts made. Now this shirt does not say Gitman Brothers but it says Mr. Guy. Mr. Guy was a famous retailer in the midwest…My dad wore this shirt proudly for about ten years…it then ended up in my closet, and I wore it all through high school and in through college, and then my younger brother inherited it…

And then as fate would have it…I moved [back] in with my parents in the summer of 2009, and I had taken a job as a traveling salesman for a shirt manufacturer in Ashland, Pennsylvania called Gitman Brothers. As [my mom] was cleaning out the attic [one day], [I came across my dad’s old Mr. Guy shirt from many years ago]…and I flip the collar and it says 1534 Made in U.S.A. with TTX fabric, which is a custom fabric made only for Gitman Brothers. I grabbed the shirt and ran downstairs and said to my mom “This is a Gitman!”. I put it on, it fit perfectly.

This belongs in the Fashion Institute of Technology

Exhibited by Max

Transcript edited by Susan Golland