Boston Gal's Open Wallet

Last year, Sapienza hired 90 new workers. He has to pay them $4 an hour more than his foreign competitors pay their employees. But by keeping production in the United States, he says he can use higher-skilled workers to make the company's $700-$1,000 suits. And he can get those suits to stores ahead of the competition without some past problems.

"We had a truck hijacked by Mexican bandits before it got to the border," Sapienza recalls. "And we lost an entire shipment of 4,000 suits and disappointed our retailer, who subsequently said he couldn't trust us and moved the production to a different brand."