The vein of our story runs not through the design districts of Milan. Nor the couture houses of Paris. No, the vein that gave and gives life to our clothing, including and especially our first-born hacking jacket, is made from a material not often considered a source of much inspiration — artistic or otherwise. Dirty and dusty, dangerous to extract, the vein we tap into is coal.

Born and reared in the heart of Southern Illinois coal country — aka Little Egypt to those in the know — our founder took keen note of his father's hard work at a coal company machine shop. And of the hard-lined, soot-stained faces of his father's friends and his friends' fathers. Grit and grime and grinding it out were the keys to, if not the good life, an inarguably respectable one.

That environment bred an appreciation for sweat and sacrifice, and a desire to celebrate those whose own stories saw them moving up but never moving on. Stories that prove the finer things in life aren't always frilly or fragile.