Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Frances Donahue sews a graduation gown Tuesday at Oak Hall Cap & Gown in Salem, which plans to turn recycled bottles into gowns.

The GreenWeaver gown came after 14 months of development and feels like polyester cloth.

Nao Nguyen works on a University of Colorado graduation gown Tuesday at Oak Hall Cap & Gown in Salem. The company employs 381 full-time workers across three facilities.

Or, for an Ivy League commencement, make that pomp, circumstance and Evian water.

By December's graduation season, Oak Hall Cap & Gown, a homegrown company founded in 1889, will offer commencement gowns sewn with material made entirely from recycled plastic bottles.

Salem-based Oak Hall, one of the region's few surviving apparel manufacturers, continues to evolve and adapt. Going "green" is the niche company's latest venture into staying current.

Yet, at first glance, Oak Hall's sewing operations resemble those of decades ago -- before foreign competition left the domestic apparel and textile industries frayed and torn. In the company's production area, sewing machines whir. Seamstresses, a few listening to music via headphones, guide fabric. Some sew by hand.

Seamstress Frances Donahue, 78, has worked for Oak Hall for 45 years. Karen Nichols, supervisor of the mortarboard area, has been with the company for 28.

"I love my job," Nichols said. "We're family here."

How about Donahue? How does she explain her long tenure?

"It's a job," she said.

Joseph D'Angelo, executive vice president and one of three owners of Oak Hall, said the company's enduring success can be attributed to honoring both customers and employees. D'Angelo, President Peter Morrison and business partner Alex Grass purchased the company in 1996 from descendants of the founding Rosenberg family.

The company shuns the use of voice mail, D'Angelo said.

"We need to talk to our customers," he said. "And even though we are a seasonal business, we do not lay off our employees. This is a family. We find work for them to do."

During doldrums days, such tasks can include updating a tassel's "date drop," switching 2009 to 2010, for example.

Satisfied customers in academia include Diane Sanderson, assistant registrar for the University of South Carolina.

"They do beautiful work," she said. "They are so nice, so accommodating. Sometimes we have to order academic regalia at the last minute, and they are always gracious about it."

Dylan to Dolly to Desmond

Famous folks, ranging from the Dalai Lama to the second President Bush, have donned Oak Hall regalia when receiving honorary degrees. Others have included Bob Dylan, Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey and Dolly Parton.

More recently, during his infamous do-over of the inaugural oath, John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, wore his Bentley & Simon judicial gown twice for the cameras. Oak Hall purchased Bentley & Simon in 1976.

Oak Hall employs 381 people full time across three facilities, including 119 at Oak Hall's 100,000-square-foot Salem headquarters and factory. Companywide, about 316 employees work in production. The average hourly wage ranges from about $9 to $9.25, according to Donna Hodges, vice president of sales and marketing.

Oak Hall has sewing facilities in Chilhowie and Wytheville and a warehouse in Roanoke, where the company started as a retail clothing store downtown.

Today, the privately owned company, which says its customers include more than 1,600 colleges and universities, does not disclose sales figures.

But D'Angelo said Tuesday that the company sold about 2.2 million "souvenir" caps and gowns last year.

"We don't like the word 'disposable,' " he said.

The 100 percent virgin polyester fabric in today's souvenir gowns is much improved from the days of disposable graduation attire, he said. D'Angelo offered up a sleeve for inspection.

Many universities and colleges now prefer gowns that include the school's name or an identifiable symbol -- markings that seem to encourage students or their parents to keep their gowns.

Going 'green'

D'Angelo and Hodges said customer inquiries and the company's own environmental concerns helped launch Oak Hall's exploration of producing gowns and mortarboards from recycled materials.

But a "spork" played a role.

About 15 months ago, D'Angelo said, he paused during lunch on a college campus to muse about his biodegradable utensil -- a marriage of spoon and fork.

"If a spork can be environmentally friendly, why not a graduation gown?" he wondered.

At first, at Oak Hall's direction, a company supplier experimented with fabric from bamboo.

"It was terrible," D'Angelo said.

Easily wrinkled, the material quickly resembled a Shar-Pei.

Next came plastic from recycled bottles.

More experimentation occurred, examining the potential for the material's "seam slippage," checking out how well the yarn received dye and comparing the new material's comfort and wear to traditional fabrics.

Fourteen months of development yielded GreenWeaver, a fabric that feels like polyester cloth. Oak Hall said it is the only company in the cap-and-gown business poised to manufacture gowns from recycled plastic.

On Tuesday, D'Angelo and Hodges had to make time to talk about GreenWeaver because this week is the company's busiest. Graduation day looms for students, whether they are completing doctoral degrees or marching on tiny feet through that strenuous rite of passage from nursery school to kindergarten.

D'Angelo said Oak Hall will ship about 140,000 graduation gowns and caps this week. About 60,000 of those will ship Thursday.

Dorcas Underwood, a supervisor of custom regalia, has been with Oak Hall for more than 23 years. She's weathered many a graduation season.

"It's like going through three months of labor, but you don't get a baby at the end," she said.