Our State

Made in North Carolina: Farm to Feet

The door inside Nester Hosiery opens to what sounds like a cloudburst. “This first room here is our knitting room,” Kelly says as he leaves a quiet office area and enters a huge room with machines stretching in neat rows across the floor. “Hearing protection is not required,” he continues, raising his voice above the din. “I always offer it, though, ’cause some of the areas are a little loud.”

Kelly leads the way through the roar of American industry, a sound that has quieted in the past quarter-century, but never stilled. His uncle Marty founded Nester Hosiery in 1993, and Kelly and his team have started a new chapter in the story of one of North Carolina’s oldest industries.