The Imperial Collection by Anna Cohen represents a lot—for American manufacturing, sustainable apparel practices, and as an example of taking a new approach to bringing products to market rather than falling into lockstep with the industry's mainstream.

It's a new division of the Imperial Stock Ranch, long celebrated as a model for sustainable practices. All of the wool in the made-in-USA pieces—which consist of womenswear and blankets—comes from the ranch, and the collection is designed by widely respected designer (and longtime Imperial collaborator) Anna Cohen. It makes its official debut today at Mercantile, with a long reception running from 2-7 pm (oh yes, there will be refreshments), which gave me occasion to write about it in this week's Sold Out column.

Imperial's Jeanne Carver, who also works as a supplier for the food industry with the ranch's other products (like beef and wheat) sees the parallels between farm-to-fork and ranch-to-runway clearly, and isn't interested in getting "caught up" in the grind of trade shows and schedules imposed by the majority of this industry. Instead she plans to develop the line slowly, working closely with a few key retailers to strategize the next collection, which won't appear any sooner than next fall. "The current system is kind of broken, and people recognized it in food first," says Carver. "And for us it was never different. It’s just a different form of protein."