Material Standards

TENDLER prioritizes responsibly sourced materials selected for their quality, longevity, and reduced environmental impact. All fabrics, yarns, and leathers are sourced from Italy.

Knitwear is developed using yarns composed of 95% recycled cashmere and 5% recycled wool, while denim utilizes fabric woven from 100% recycled and certified regenerative cotton. Leathers are sourced from renowned tanneries recognized for their craftsmanship and quality. 

Materials are certified to internationally recognized standards including GRS, ReVerSo, RWS, GOTS, and certified regenerative standards, supporting recycled content, traceability, regenerative agriculture, animal welfare, and responsible sourcing practices throughout the supply chain.

TENDLER views these considerations not as separate from its luxury standards, but as part of the broader pursuit of creating products with integrity and lasting quality.

Measured Impact

TENDLER materials are evaluated through certified sourcing systems and lifecycle analysis, measuring reductions in water use, energy consumption, emissions, and other environmental indicators when compared with conventional materials.

Material Index

Recycled Cashmere

Recycled cashmere begins with the preservation of a fiber too delicate and too rare to be lost. Fine cashmere remnants and loose fibers are carefully gathered; what might otherwise disappear from the cycle of making is treated with the attention it deserves: collected, protected, and prepared for renewal.

Once gathered, the fibers are gently opened and sorted by hand, separating what can be returned to its purest use. The work requires patience — loosening the fiber without diminishing its softness, preparing it without stripping away the natural warmth that gives cashmere its quiet depth.

From there, the cashmere is spun again into yarn, carrying its original tenderness into a new form. The yarn is then knitted slowly into fabric, where density, gauge, and tension determine the final hand: soft but substantial, warm without weight, intimate against the skin. Reviewed through each stage of making, the material becomes a garment defined by preservation — a precious fiber gathered carefully, renewed with discipline, and allowed to continue its life in another form.

Recycled Denim

Recycled denim begins within the making process itself, where fresh cuttings and loose fibers are reclaimed and gathered at their source, while the material is still pure and full of purpose. Nothing precious is treated as incidental; each remnant is preserved for the possibility of becoming cloth again.

Once collected, the cotton is opened back into fiber and prepared for spinning. It is sorted, cleaned, carded, and blended with care, so the material can regain the cohesion denim requires. The work is one of calibration: fiber length, yarn strength, surface texture, and the dry, substantial hand that allows denim to feel structured without becoming stiff.

From there, the cotton is spun into yarn and woven through warp and weft into denim. The twill gives the cloth its diagonal grain; the tension of the weave gives it structure; the finishing gives it depth, touch, and movement. Carried through cutting, sewing, washing, and review, the fabric becomes a garment made to hold its shape, soften at the seams, and gather the marks of wear slowly over time.

Organic Cotton

Organic cotton begins in the soil, where the seed is cultivated without synthetic pesticides or genetic modification. It asks more of the field before it ever becomes fiber: cleaner ground, slower tending, and a closer relationship between the crop and the hands that raise it. Its character is shaped first by the quality of the ground and the patience of the harvest.

Once gathered, the cotton is opened from the boll and separated into its finest fibers. The work is patient and deliberate — cleaning, combing, and aligning the fiber so that its natural softness is preserved from plant to thread. Each passage depends on precision: the handling of the fiber, the care of its preparation, and the quiet discipline required to keep a natural material intact as it begins to change form.

From there, the fiber is spun into yarn, drawn into fabric, and carried through a chain of making watched and reviewed at every stage. For cotton to be GOTS-certified, care must continue beyond cultivation, following the material through processing, manufacturing, and labeling, with environmental and social criteria applied throughout the textile supply chain.

Certifications

TENDLER materials are supported by internationally recognized standards verifying recycled content, organic fibers, regenerative sourcing, animal welfare, chemical safety, and supply chain traceability.

Impact figures reflect lifecycle and supplier analysis for selected material systems compared with conventional equivalents. Results may vary by product, finish, and production process.

Our Craft

TENDLER garments begin with materials sourced from Italy and are made in Los Angeles through a close network of specialist makers. Each piece passes through a considered process of knitting, cutting, sewing, washing, finishing, and review, with attention given to material and garment at every stage.

Creating locally allows the work to remain close. It gives us a direct relationship to the garment as it takes shape — from the first handling of fabric or yarn to the final preparation of the finished piece. By keeping production within Los Angeles, each stage can be approached as part of one continuous standard rather than a disconnected chain.

For TENDLER, the value of a garment is shaped not only by the material itself, but by the care with which it is made. Construction, handfeel, surface, and finish are treated as part of the same pursuit: clothing made with discipline, purpose, and lasting quality.

Made in Los Angeles

The Human Standard

The human standard and value of this process is central and begins with the people who make the work possible. Los Angeles manufacturing is carried by skilled artisans, pattern makers, cutters, sewing operators, knit technicians, washers, finishers, and specialists whose knowledge has been formed through years of practice. Their value lies not only in technical skill, but in trained judgment: the tension of a seam, the balance of a fit, the behavior of fabric, the exact moment a wash has gone far enough. These are not mechanical steps. They are decisions made by skilled hands and trained eyes. 

We craft everything in Los Angeles because that knowledge deserves to remain close to the garment. Production is local, within a small network of workrooms, factories, studios, and wash houses. The garment is not sent away and returned as a finished object. It is built through a process that can be followed, questioned, adjusted, and protected as it takes shape.

This also means the people behind the work are not obscured behind anonymous production. They work within a system where conditions, safety, wages, and responsibility are part of the reality of production, not details hidden beyond the reach of the house. Their craft is respected, their environment matters, and their role in the garment is understood as essential to its value - because it is. 

To produce in Los Angeles today is also to invest in a garment culture that deserves to flourish again. The city once held one of the great fashion manufacturing economies in America. Much of that world has been weakened by the pursuit of inexpensive production elsewhere, but the skill has not disappeared. It remains in the cutting rooms, sewing floors, knitting studios, finishing houses, and laundries of Los Angeles, carried by Angelenos whose experience is increasingly rare.

Local production is slower, more expensive, and more demanding, but supports the people, standards, and knowledge that give the garment its quality in the first place. It is a choice to keep responsibility close, to preserve a local craft economy, and to prove that luxury can still be made with human care at the center.

Environmental Accountability

Producing in Los Angeles places the garment within a more accountable environmental system. TENDLER works under local requirements governing water, waste, chemical handling, workplace safety, and responsible disposal — the practical realities that shape how garments are cut, washed, finished, stored, and handled.

For TENDLER, ecology is not a message placed around the garment after it is made. It is a discipline within the making itself, present in the choice of material, the handling of fabric, the restraint of a wash, the management of waste, and the standards each process is required to meet. 

Environmental responsibility depends not only on what a garment is made from, but on the conditions under which it is made. This is especially true in denim, where washing and finishing give the garment its character, but also carry environmental consequences. For TENDLER, those processes must remain visible, considered, and subject to correction. 

By keeping production close, accountability becomes part of the work itself. Processes can be visited, materials can be followed, standards can be questioned, and decisions can be made with greater restraint before they disappear into a supply chain. The result is not a perfect system, but a more honest one — one in which the house remains closer to the consequences of its own making.

For TENDLER, local production is not a symbolic gesture. It is a structural choice. It keeps responsibility closer to the garment, closer to the people who make it, and closer to the place where the house can stand behind what has been done.

Atelier Processes

Knitting

TENDLER knitwear begins with Italian recycled cashmere and wool yarn, selected for softness, weight, and lasting character. The yarn is brought to Los Angeles, where each sweater is made in small batches by local specialist makers.

Knitwear has its own rhythm. It is not cut from a finished cloth, but brought into form as the yarn moves row by row, creating the panels, ribs, edges, and openings that give the garment its shape. What begins as thread becomes something with body, warmth, and structure.

The result is knitwear that feels considered from the first touch: soft without losing form, substantial without heaviness, relaxed without feeling careless. Made to sit close to the body, hold its shape, and become more personal with wear.

Cut and Sew

TENDLER cut-and-sew pieces are made in Los Angeles by local sewers who understand how fabric becomes form. The work is quiet and exact: a panel placed on grain, a seam drawn cleanly, a pocket set with intention, a waistband shaped to hold without forcing. These decisions are often invisible from a distance, but they determine how a garment sits, moves, and lasts.

For denim especially, construction carries the character of the piece. Strength is built into the seams, ease is shaped through proportion, and the hand of the maker remains in the finished garment — not as ornament, but as the quiet force that gives it resolve.

Wash

A wash is where denim, worked in Los Angeles by hand and through time-intensive processes, transforms from fabric into a garment with memory.

Each TENDLER wash is developed for its fabric and silhouette, allowing color, texture, and handfeel to arrive together. The process is not about distress for its own sake. It is about drawing character out of the material: softening the surface, opening the weave, deepening the shade, and giving the garment the ease of something already lived with.

The work is physical and precise. Through washing, handling, abrasion, pressure, and careful review, the denim is shaped until the life within the cloth begins to appear. Like sculpture, the process is less about adding than revealing — finding the attitude already held in the material and bringing it to the surface.

The best wash does not announce itself. It feels natural, balanced, and inevitable, as though the denim has arrived at the right state through time, touch, and wear. This is what gives TENDLER denim its character: not overworked, not untouched, but considered.

Finishing

Finishing is the last quiet stage before a garment leaves our hands. 

After construction and wash, each piece is prepared in Los Angeles through the small acts that make a garment feel complete: seams are settled, hardware is reviewed, labels are placed, threads are cleared, and the piece is pressed into its final shape. These gestures are not dramatic, but they shape the way a garment feels the first time it is held.

For TENDLER, finishing is a matter of respect for the work that came before it. Material, construction, surface, and presentation are brought into balance so the piece leaves with the quiet assurance of something fully considered.