Casual dressing is in their jeans.

• Position: Denims

Bud Willis III was decked out in his power suit, which isn't unusual for a division vice president at Greensboro-based Cone Mills Corp. And considering that 60% of Cone's sales last year came from denim, it shouldn't come as a surprise that his power suit is a golf shirt and Levi's 501 jeans.

Tar Heel textile manufacturers haven't had a lot of good news lately. But casual Fridays have helped the state's denim makers, which produce 40% of the nation's denim. Rising demand has been prompted by many factors, including the fondness of aging baby boomers for the uniform of their youth.

"Now companies are spreading the trend to casual Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and casual Monday," says Willis, who heads the apparel-products division at Cone, the nation's largest denim maker. He and his counterparts across town at Burlington Industries Inc. say increasing denim use in home furnishings and apparel other than jeans is boosting demand, too.

That's encouraging, considering that denim makers such as Cone, Burlington and others are only slightly better off than their beleaguered textile brethren. "Demand for denim has been really good, but profitability is not because of rising cotton costs and the fact...