Todd Shelton started as a single long-sleeve t-shirt, sold at Soho street markets after its founder released it in the early 2000s following a few years working at a fashion brand by day and design school by night. Recurring problems with outside manufacturers, including a chronically late Brooklyn pants factory, led him to open his own factory in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 2012, where a jeans maker named Gabriel and a former shirt-factory owner named Mr. Chin taught the team to make jeans and shirts in-house. After a decade of expanding fit options and products, the brand simplified sharply, discontinuing everything in January 2025 except cotton jeans, solid button-ups, and crewneck t-shirts.