With manufacturing returning to American shores, and brands like the Boston-based New Balance helping to fuel the popularity of American-made apparel, it’s no surprise that designers are becoming increasingly interested in sourcing American textiles. What may come as more of a surprise is that the westward return of textiles sourcing makes just as much sense from a financial standpoint as it does from a marketing one. Here’s why. According to The New York Times, American textile and apparel exports increased by 37% to $22.7 million between 2009 and 2012. Time magazine states that between 2010 and 2013, manufacturing jobs increased by 500,000. What’s the cause of such unexpected growth? Major reasons include: cheaper transportation costs, only marginally higher labor costs (kept down by the automation of American factories), and faster turnaround times. Despite the rush to outsource milling in the 20th century, some American mills, including Pendleton Woolen Mills and Faribault Woolen Mill Company, continue to thrive. The secret to the survival of these mills seems to be that they offer premium products, impeccable brand reputation, and a transparent production process. When a designer sources textiles from them, they know what they will get and exactly how it will be made. Nothing is truer of Pendleton, whose woolen blankets have become an American classic. As labor and transportation costs increase in the developing world, designers look toward American textiles because they can be sourced efficiently, transparently, and at costs that don’t look as prohibitive as they once did. Recent findings about the appalling conditions of five spinning mills in Southern India may offer another reason why sourcing textiles in North America may be preferential: in America, the supply chain—from the spinning of yarn to the production of apparel—is more transparent than many offshore markets.Designers who source from select American mills like Pendleton can at least be sure that the textiles they buy are made with fairly compensated labor and in a sustainable manner. As Don Scarlata, owner of another surviving American operation, Colonial Mills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, points out: “I’m always asked why I don’t move production overseas… I wanted to maintain all the control over what was being made and how it was made. Our reputation made me focus on being a domestic manufacturer.” Besides transparency and reputation, speed and efficiency is another pressing issue. When sourcing textiles from an American manufacturer, designers receive their samples and products quickly—without paying high transportation costs. Bayard Winthrop, founder of apparel company American Giant, told The New York Times that he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the textiles he sourced from Haryana, India, and the process was made more difficult by long distance. Offshore sourcing can, in this way, be experienced as disempowering for designers from the perspective of choice, despite the lower costs: “We just avoid so many big and small stumbles that invariably happen when you try to do things from far away,” Mr. Winthrop said. Whatever reason for the present vogue for “Made in the USA” textiles and apparel, the increased choice it offers designers can only be a good thing.