Carhartt and Friends Write the Brand’s Next 135 Years of History

Bertony Faustin wears Carhartt work gear to harvest grapes in his Oregon vineyard, but will also wear it out to a more formal event just to get people to ask about it.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in a family of Haitian immigrants, Faustin wrapped up school in Florida and North Carolina in 1999 and made plans to go west to California. He made it to Oregon, working as an anesthesia technician at Oregon Health & Science University and starting his own family.

When his father died in 2007, Faustin felt he hadn’t lived up to the legacy of hardship his parents faced as first-generation immigrants. He quit his job and, in 2008, planted seven acres of grapes on property he’d bought for his father in Portland’s West Hills. With the opening of Abbey Creek Winery, he became the first recorded Black vineyard owner and winemaker in Oregon’s history.

His reward was being told by people in his own industry “directly and indirectly that I didn’t look the part.” That’s when he began wearing his Carhartt overalls everywhere he went.

“At black tie events, I’ve got the cleaner black pair of overalls, buttoned-down shirt, tie. And then you’ll get the guy who’s in the tuxedo who wants to know why,” Faustin said. “Now I get to talk about representation.”

Carhartt eventually saw photos of Faustin in his overalls and asked him to film a commercial for the brand with his son and daughter in 2018. The ad led to Faustin becoming one of the Friends of Carhartt—workers who regularly appear in the company’s marketing and support the brand on social media.

Even after Susan Hennike took over as Carhartt’s chief brand officer in August 2022, Faustin remained close with the brand. He featured in ads showcasing its “next frontier” of work and meeting the newest class of brand representatives at the Friends of Carhartt Summit at the brand’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, earlier this month.

As Carhartt launches into new campaigns like “History in the Making”—which blends antiqued audio with modern images of turbine workers, shopkeepers and fishing crews—Hennike and the brand want to continue incorporating Faustin’s voice and others from “workforce 2.0” into 135-year-old Carhartt’s broad vision for its future.

“They are actual workers that wear our product and love the brand, but they’re very, very honest with us and they give us very direct feedback,” Hennike said.  “For us to stay current, we have to stay on top of what is next, where the work’s taking the consumer and how we’re going to be there for them.” 

Built to last

Before Faustin planted roots in Oregon, Hennike started there with Adidas, managing women’s apparel, before moving to Nike World Headquarters as director of licensed apparel. She followed that with multiple stints at Champion, eventually ascending to president, before leaving to become chief product officer at Bombas. 

Hennike’s career has been built around durable garments, and the history behind founder Hamilton Carhartt’s rugged bibbed garments that he began making for railroad workers in 1889 drew her to the company. But even as workers in the company’s archived donned white gloves and pulled out versions of those garments from the early 1900s for onlookers at the Friends of Carhartt Summit, Hennike and her kept looking for ways to tie the brand’s past to its rapidly advancing future.

The first step is embracing that durability and touting the value of garments that aren’t meant to be disposable. Earlier this year, the company launched its Carhartt Reworked resale program that allows consumers to turn in used apparel for credit toward new items. 

Partnering with resale company Trove, Carhartt refurbishes some of those used items and puts them back into circulation. The online, mail-in program was successful enough that Carhartt expanded it to retail locations.

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.”

Carhartt, for its part, has been open to reinterpretation. While the company itself remains committed strictly to designing and making apparel for workers, it’s spent nearly three decades advising London-based Carhartt Work in Progress on street and skatewear based on its core offerings. 

It’s been so ingrained in U.S. hip-hop that those who’ve worn it have ranged from House of Pain and Naughty by Nature to Nas and Tupac Shakur. Faustin even shared a screenshot of Carhartt-wearing rapper Biz Markie from Showtime’s documentary All Up in the Biz with a head designer at Carhartt. 

Yet both Faustin and Hennike noted that Carhartt’s followers from all corners gravitate to it because of its strictly business approach.

“Although we respect everybody that buys our product, no matter how they use it, we’re really still focused on that core mission,” Hennike said. “Nowadays, it’s all about the story, and people just appreciate that this is a 135-year-old brand that has really remained true to who we are.”