The Cleanest Line

Introducing “$20 Million & Change” and Patagonia Works – A Holding Company for the Environment

By Yvon Chouinard



I don’t like to think of myself as a businessman. I’ve made no secret that I hold a fairly skeptical view of the business world. That said, Patagonia, the company my wife and I founded four decades ago, has grown up to be — by global standards — a medium-size business. And that bestows on our family a serious responsibility. The last line of Patagonia’s mission statement is “… use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” We’ve always taken that seriously.

Three examples: Every year for 30 years, Patagonia has donated one percent of its sales to grassroots environmental organizations. We helped initiate the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, an organization of companies that produces more than a third of the clothing and footwear on the planet. In a very short time, the Coalition has launched an index of social and environmental performance that designers (and eventually consumers) can use to make better decisions when developing products or choosing materials. And last year we became one of California’s first B Corps (benefit corporations), which means that the values that helped make our company successful are now etched into our legal charter.

Worn Wear – The Hand-Me-Down

By Shari Williamson, Bozeman, Montana



Dear Patagonia,

I don’t actually know the original owner of this little red and purple fleece jacket. I do not know several names scrawled on the tag, but I know some of them… We found this jacket in a large ragged cardboard box of hand-me-downs from a family with three kids. The jacket came to them from a co-worker with two boys. 

Next, with our two girls, this jacket saw hundreds of miles of trail, many nights in tents, from back roads to back yards, and every other day in between.

Two New Products I Want to Rave About – M10 Jacket & Knifeblade Pants

By Colin Haley

Here is a quick blog post that doesn't include any cool climbing stories or photos, and will only appeal to gear nerds, like myself. I want to take a minute to rave about two new Patagonia products, the updated M10 Jacket and the new Knifeblade Pants. No one at Patagonia has asked me to make this blog post, and in fact, as I type this out, I'm not sure if they'll even put it up on the Patagonia blog. [Editor's note: The Knifeblade Pants will be available in late summer when our fall 2013 line launches.]

My motivation is simple and selfish. Often the very best Patagonia alpine products are discontinued after only one year on the market because they don't sell well enough. This is why some pieces which are now a cherished staple, such as the R1 Hoody, were once discontinued. I used the new M10 Jacket and the Knifeblade Pants on almost every climb I made this past season in Patagonia and they are the best alpine shell jacket and pants I've ever used – which leads me to worry that they won't sell well and will therefore be discontinued. Ironic, yes! So, I simply want to explain why I like these two products so much, in the hope that I'll be able to keep ordering them for years!

I know that people often view product testimonials with skepticism, and obviously for good reason. I can assure you that my endorsement of these two products is 100% honest, and that I wouldn't take part in a product testimonial of a product I didn't like, even if I were asked to do so. Even for a product that I do really like, like the new Encapsil Parka, I wouldn't yet write a product testimonial for it, simply because I haven't yet used it enough to be 100% sure of what I am writing.

So, here goes...

Worn Wear: True Stories of People and Their Patagonia Gear - Submit Yours Today

Worn Wear is the brainchild of Keith and Lauren Malloy. Inspired by the years of use Keith was getting from his surf gear, they decided to start a Tumblr blog where folks like you can share stories about your favorite piece of Patagonia clothing. Yvon Chouinard helped get things started when he wrote about making the grandfather of all fleeces.

Today we're happy to share a recent entry from Worn Wear and invite you to submit one of your own. It's easy to do and everyone who gets their story published will receive a Worn Wear patch from the Malloys.



My First Pile
John Wasson, Wilson, Wyoming

Dear Patagonia,

I’m pretty sure I bought this sweater from Bob Wade at the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen. Probably 1978. It was utilitarian to say the least. Light, tough, quick dry and ‘tech’. I started wearing it under a paddling jacket instead of the old wool sweaters that were the standard then.

The Patagonia Encapsil Down Belay Parka: An Origin Story

By Ethan Stewart



Editor's note: The creation of our new Encapsil™ Down Belay Parka is a big deal for all of us at Patagonia. In the midst of getting everything ready for launch, we asked our friend Ethan Stewart to tell the story of how Encapsil down and the parka came to be. Though he handled the writing like the professional news reporter that he is, it should be said that we requested this piece.

At first blush, the big “wow” factor of the Encapsil Down Belay Parka is, of course, the insulation, Patagonia’s proprietary take on water-resistant down. There has been an industry wide race in the past year to get water-resistant down products available for mass consumption. The idea of making down clusters impervious to their historic Kryptonite of moisture has been a Holy Grail of sorts for outdoor garment manufacturers for quite some time. And, while other companies have managed to plant their water-resistant-down flags first, none have been able to do what Encapsil down has achieved.

“This is an absolute game changer. It’s not just a small tech evolution,” Patagonia’s Alpine Line Manager Jenna Johnson said with a smile on her face, “I mean, when GORE-TEX® fabrics first came out is probably the last time something did this for the marketplace.”

Above: Patagonia ambassadors Dylan Johnson (foreground) and Josh Wharton (wearing headlamp and Encapsil Down Belay Parka) take a chilly breather halfway up the north face of Mount Temple. Canada. Photo: Mikey Schaefer

Wooly in Patagonia

by Jim Little, Patagonia Creative Services

We have some great benefits at Patagonia. But none is better than the opportunity to volunteer with environmental groups through our internship program. During my 15 years working as an editor here at our headquarters in Ventura, I’ve gotten to follow wild buffalo in West Yellowstone, see the effects of industrial forestry in Chile, learn about the sagebrush environment in northern Nevada, and most recently, spend two weeks in Patagonia, Argentina, working with The Nature Conservancy on its grasslands project.

Sheep ranching is the most prevalent land use in the Patagonia region, which is three times the size of California and mostly privately owned. Overgrazing is turning its grasslands into desert. To reverse the degradation, preserve biodiverstiy and freshwater resources, Patagonia has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and Ovis XXI, an Argentine company that manages and develops a network of wool producers.

[Above: A gaucho and his border collie head to their flock.]

What We Do For a Living - An Excerpt from "The Responsible Company"

by Yvon Chouinard & Vincent Stanley

We are still in the earliest stages of learning how what we do for a living both threatens nature and fails to meet our deepest human needs. The impoverishment of our world and the devaluing of the priceless undermine our physical and economic well-being.

Yet the depth and breadth of technological innovation of the past few decades shows that we have not lost our most useful gifts: humans are ingenious, adaptive, clever. We also have moral capacity, compassion for life, and an appetite for justice. We now need to more fully engage these gifts to make economic life more socially just and environmentally responsible, and less destructive to nature and the commons that sustain us.

This book aims to sketch, in light of our environmental crisis and economic sea change, the elements of business responsibility for our time, when everyone in business at every level has to deal with the unintended consequences of a 200-year-old industrial model that can no longer be sustained ecologically, socially, or financially.

Choose to Reuse

by Annie Leonard

When I moved into the house in Dhaka where I lived in 1993, I noticed there was no wastebasket in my room. On my first trip to the market, I bought one – and soon discovered that throwing things “away” meant something different in the capital of Bangladesh than back home. What I threw into the trash quickly resurfaced in the community, put to another use. My blue flowered deodorant container turned up on a neighbor’s living room shelf as a vase for real flowers. A small boy stuck rods through my empty hair conditioner bottle and attached wheels, making a toy car he pulled around on a string.

The potential for reuse is everywhere. It’s like that folk tale many of us were read as kids. Joseph’s grandfather turns his favorite blanket into a jacket. Joseph wears it out, so Grandpa turns the jacket into a vest. The vest becomes a handkerchief. The handkerchief becomes a tie. The tie becomes a button. Finally the button is lost. Even Grandpa can’t make something from nothing – but the lesson about how Stuff can be repurposed and reused again and again is clear.

Well-Worn Wading Boots on Christmas Island

by Tom Morehouse



I have an interesting Patagonia photo to share with you. I was on Christmas Island (Kiribati) in March. My guide was Moana who was one of the founders of bonefishing on Christmas Island in the '80s when he was about 30 years of age.

[Nothing beats local knowledge. Moana Kofe scouts for bonefish on Kiribati. Photo: Tom Morehouse]

While fishing, I noticed that he had an old pair of Patagonia wading shoes on which were very well-worn. But here is the interesting part. He fishes every day for 12 hours in the salt water. These shoes have not only held up but, as the picture shows, have seaweed growing out of the tongue. When asked about it he said that the shoes never dry out and it has been there for years. I am enclosing a picture for you.

Patagonia Surf Stores - The Wave Riding Collective

by Devon Howard



The first time I entered the hallowed doors of my local surf shop – Mitch’s on La Jolla’s Pearl Street – it felt like a rite of passage.

As a 10-year-old grommet, I was in awe of all the cool surf and skate gear crammed on the store’s narrow, cluttered walls. I stood there, paralyzed, imagining what it would be like to ride one of the shiny new Puringtons, Bessells, Craigs or Staples surfboards lined up along the back room. I eventually gazed toward the glass counter, and drooled over all the Gullwing trucks, riser pads, O.J. wheels, Powell decks, stickers and grip tape that I would later nag my folks to buy me for upcoming birthdays.

[Devon Howard grabs an FCD Fish off the rack. Patagonia Cardiff, California. Photo: Jeff Johnson]