On a brisk weekday in October 2023, three sewing machines hummed while experimental indie pop played quietly inside a warehouse near the airport in Missoula, Montana. Three sewers had their heads down, assembling eggplant-colored jumpsuits, as Mallory Ottariano, the 34-year-old founder of the women’s outdoor clothing brand Youer, squinted into a dizzying spreadsheet. The Youniverse—what Ottariano, a queen of puns, calls the factory she opened just eight months earlier—smelled like the sugary candle that had been burning that morning, and soon it would be fragrant with garlic.

　　“What kind of pizza do you guys like? Or not like?” Ottariano shouted from the lofted office that a handy friend helped her build. Staring at numbers was making her hungry.

　　“No olives!” one of the sewers shouted between stitches.

　　“Any meat?” Ottariano asked.

　　“I like pepperoni,” said another.

　　You couldn’t tell from the employees’ nonchalance, but Youer was in the middle of its latest supply-chain crisis. Actually, two. First, it couldn’t find a specific purple thread in all of the U.S. to sew together 300 pairs of leggings, 30 of which had already sold to customers eagerly awaiting their arrival. Any other color would look weird, and dyeing was too expensive. Second, inventory slated to be ready in a month for a Black Friday drop wasn’t even underway at a contract factory in Los Angeles, California. Unless Ottariano found a fix fast, Youer’s customers would be disappointed, if not angry.

　　Since Ottariano started out back in 2012 with a $100 sewing machine from eBay, her brand has amassed a fanatical following among active women. Signature garments like the best-selling Treasure dress ($179) and stretchy Get After It skort ($94) sell out quickly. The vibrant prints are hand-designed and cheekily named by Ottariano, like a floral pattern called OK Bloomer.

　　Prodded about her stress levels, Ottariano shrugged as if to say, What’s new? After all she’s been through—including contemplating bankruptcy following losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to unreliable factories in 2020—not many setbacks phase her anymore.

　　“I’ve proven to myself that we can figure it out,” she says. “It’s not really fun, but I think that’s just the reality of business. If I want to stay in this industry, that’s going to happen all the damn time.”

　　It’s especially the reality for small outdoor businesses like Youer that have chosen to manufacture domestically despite countless challenges such as higher costs, fewer resources, more regulation, and now potential new tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump on U.S. imports from China, Canada, and Mexico.

　　These obstacles pose such a threat to small businesses that doubt lingers: Is having more control, greater transparency, and better ethics by manufacturing in the U.S. worth it? And do American consumers care enough about those things to keep the few American-made gear brands alive?