Another is understanding who’s actually using your product in the field. Hennike noted that, currently, only 3% of wind turbine technicians are women, but they’re a growing portion of that workforce that the Carhartt marketing and product teams have followed into the field. While durability hasn’t been an issue, a dedicated team now oversees both the fit and utility of Carhartt women’s garments.
“There’s an old saying that I’ve used in my career multiple times: ‘You can’t just pink and shrink it,’” she said. “You can’t just take a men’s apparel and make it pink and a size down. … We have to make the product for her.”
Circle of friends
For the last portion of the equation, Carhartt needs only to let its friends be themselves.
Faustin spoke about his relationship with Carhartt as a true partnership in which everyone has a different need—much as Nike did with Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Carhartt apparel can’t make someone a better winemaker any more than Jordans or LeBrons can make them run faster or jump higher, but those products and their partnerships each sell a story and speak to a moment in the culture.
In Faustin’s view, Carhartt is looking at its first 135 years and thinking about how it’s going to add another 135 to the tally. Their most recent campaigns, and Hennike’s work, suggest that connecting working people of various backgrounds is at least part of the answer—even if that means yielding some of their messaging to that of their friends.
Shortly after becoming a Friend of Carhartt in 2019, Faustin saw potential in the brand’s reach and recognition. He contacted the company’s factory designer and had Carhartt send him 20 yards of the company’s trademark brown duckbill denim. With help from Portland tailoring shop Wildwood & Company, he had the material fashioned into a bespoke three-piece suit.
The result worked out so well that Carhartt sent him more material, this time in black, for a second suit. Just as he had before the partnership, Faustin used Carhartt to start conversations about race and representation in his industry.
“If I had a megaphone and a poster, and I was on the corner talking the same stuff, no one would give me the time of day,” Faustin said. “But because I have wine as a vessel, I have Carhartt as a vessel, a three-piece suit of black, bespoke, James Bond-looking Carhartt … all of a sudden, that makes you acknowledge.”