An appreciation of Patagonia's authenticity

Authenticity is heavily sought but rarely achieved, especially in the domain of clothing brands. All too frequently brands attempt to embed themselves into trending subcultures at the drop of the hat, without having any actual substance behind it.

Not many clothing brands and their founders fully live what they’re about, but in the discussion of the ones that do, Patagonia’s name should come at the very top, hand in hand with Yvon Chouinard’s.

Since the brand’s foundation in the early ’70s, Patagonia has worked profusely to stick tightly to the ethos, and ideology set out by Chouinard all those years ago, earning its place as one of the most genuine names in the outdoor clothing and equipment world. The Patagonia philosophy has been crafted throughout the brand’s rich – a story that began in 1957…

At the time, Patagonia was a word used only to reference one thing, the South American region to which it refers. It would remain this way for another 13 years, but despite this, the brand’s story begins here.

In 1957, an 18-year-old Yvon Chouinard had slowly been gaining recognition from the very early adopters of American big wall climbing for his technical climbing ability and bold approach to adventure. But it wasn’t until he took a trip to a local junkyard that his name would begin cementing in the history books.

The junkyard trip would see Yvon return with a used coal-fired forge, and a revolutionary idea – to use it to produce his own pitons that would vastly exceed the quality of those at the time.

Without any blacksmithing lessons, Yvon set about making his first batch of pitons from an old harvester blade. These pitons would then be precariously field-tested on the 2,145m granite wall of Sentinel Peak in Yosemite National Park. Fortunately for the livelihood of Yvon and his climbing partner T.M. Herbert, the pitons passed the test, and they did it with flying colours. Yvon’s pitons were far superior to any others at the time.

It didn’t take long for whispers of Yvon Chouinard and his hand-crafted pitons to spread like wildfire around Yosemite’s dirt-bag climbing mecca of Camp Four. Everyone wanted to have them, and for a $1.50 per piton cheque written to Yvon’s new company ‘Chouinard Equipment’, they could.

Chouinard Equipment’s pitons rapidly became the gold standard of their discipline, and the influx in demand led to Yvon partnering with a fellow climber named Tom Frost. Chouinard and Frost would set out the first guiding principle of Chouinard Equipment, coming from a French aviator named Antoine de Saint Exupéry who said “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” This quote would go on to be an intrinsic part of Chouinard Equipment’s ethos and Patagonia thereafter.

Yvon’s first encounter with Patagonia itself would come in 1968 when he and fellow climbers Doug Tompkins, Chris Jones and Dick Dorworth set off to conquer the hallowed region’s most iconic peak, Mount Fitz Roy. The crew would embark on a 5,000-mile road trip in a white Ford van, surfing, skiing and eventually climbing the peak along the way. It was an expedition of epic proportions and one that would inspire Yvon to take Chouinard Equipment to new heights.

In 1970, Yvon had done a full 180 on piton production, coming to terms with the fact that hammering forged metal into an environment that he held dearly was counterintuitive. Subscribing to the ‘Clean Climbing’ ethics set out by the legendary Royal Robbins, Yvon turned his attention away from hard climbing goods and toward soft ones.

The first move on the clothing chessboard for Chouinard Equipment was through the importation of cotton rugby shirts which would go on to become a symbolic uniform for Yosemite climbers at the time, thanks to their hardwearing construction and immediately noticeable bright colours. The success of the rugby shirts would provide Yvon with the key to open his first retail store, Great Pacific Iron Works in Ventura, California.

It was Yvon’s first success of many in the business of outdoor clothing, but less ethically minded climbers were continuing to inquire about the pitons…

In an effort to move away from the conceptions around Chouinard Equipment as a piton manufacturer, Yvon would reinvent the company under the title of the region he fell in love with on that legendary expedition, Patagonia.

It didn’t take long for Patagonia to equal the success of their rugby shirts with the invention of the Stand Up Shorts, a hardwearing canvas style of shorts with large pockets that is still produced now. The brand was going from strength to strength and in 1975 this would be catalysed by the introduction of their debut Pile Jackets.

The tale of the Pile Jacket and Patagonia’s pile fleece is worthy of a write-up of its own, but at the core of it Yvon tasked his wife Malinda with investigating synthetic fabrics in Los Angeles, she returned to California with a polyester toilet seat cover which had all the properties of the fleece Yvon had been wearing in his dreams – it was hydrophobic, lightweight and dried quickly.

The toilet seat pile fleeces were Patagonia’s biggest success to date thanks to their innovative fabric properties and typical Chouinard-influenced design and construction. The Pile Fleece laid the foundations for what would become the most defining genre of Patagonia product.

Over the next 40 years, Yvon Chouinard and his ever-increasing number of staff would build Patagonia to be one of the most respected names in the outdoor clothing world, and at the root of this success was and continues to be the brand’s profound authenticity.

Patagonia’s designs and products come from a place as authentic as any, birthed as solutions to problems that Yvon and his accomplices would encounter on their own expeditions.

The rugby shirt was created because regular cotton garments tore to shreds on Yosemite’s granite walls. The Pile Jacket was created because fleece at the time was too heavy when wet. Baggies were created because normal shorts didn’t work for both swimming and hiking. The list goes on and on.

If a Patagonia product isn’t solving a problem, or outperforming the competition, it isn’t produced.

This authenticity doesn’t just reflect itself in the products, but also is an embodiment of the brand’s ethos and attitude to sustainability…

In 1996 they pledged to use only organic cotton in their cotton clothing lines. In the same year, the New York Times praised the company for having 60% of women in managerial positions. The brand requires all links in its supply chain to follow a strict code of conduct. Over 80% of its sewing is done through Fair Trade, and of course, in 2022 Yvon Chouinard transferred the $3 billion ownership of Patagonia to a specially designed non-profit to fight climate crisis.

Clothing production is inherently bad for the environment and managing one in a truly responsible and sustainable manner is nearly impossible, but no one has come as close as Yvon Chouinard. When you wear Patagonia you’re wearing a statement – buying into the rich philosophy, brand history and stories that are behind every product. It’s authentic in the truest meaning of the word.

With some brands, as time moves on this authenticity can become lost in translation, with companies often sacrificing commodities such as quality and heritage in exchange for bigger margins, but as with anything that has Yvon Chouinard’s name on it, this isn’t the case with modern Patagonia.

Here’s a selection of key products that all embody everything great about the greatest outdoor brand, from our friends over at SEVEN STORE.