Patagonia

Patagonia is an outdoor clothing company based in Ventura, California. It is best known for its environmental and social consciousness, which manifests itself from its marketing to its business practices to its support of environmental charities.

Patagonia was founded in 1972 by southern California rock climber Yvon Chouinard (b. 1938). The environmentally conscious son of a French-Canadian blacksmith—he joined the Sierra Club as a young man and founded the Southern California Falconry Club—he first became interested in rock climbing through falconry. It was a necessary skill to investigate falcon aeries in craggy peaks in places like Yosemite Valley. After a while, he decided to make his own climbing tools, using the blacksmithing skills he had learned from his father and a secondhand coal-fired forge. Chouinard was a serious rock and mountain climber: he was the first to ascend the North Face of Mount Sir David in the Canadian Rockies, and with legendary climber Fred Beckey, he discovered the Beckey-Chouinard Route on South Howser Tower in the Bugaboos, a range in the British Columbian Purcell Mountains.

Dividing his time between climbing expeditions and surfing, he supported himself selling his homemade hard-steel pitons out of the back of his car. Specially made for the climbing challenges of the Yosemite Valley, the pitons were instrumental in stirring up interest in “big-wall climbing” in Yosemite, which in turn led to more piton sales, leading to the founding of Chouinard Equipment Limited. Working with fellow climber Tom Frost, he redesigned the basic tools of ice climbing for use on steeper ice, using what they had learned from rock wall climbing. By the late 1970s, this innovation led to the modern sport of recreational ice climbing.

Chouinard's commitment to the environment was demonstrated when he discovered that the hard-steel pitons he had introduced to Yosemite Valley climbing were damaging the rock. Beginning the following year, in 1971, Chouinard Equipment began selling more “rock-friendly” aluminum chockstones to replace pitons—which had accounted for more than two-thirds of the company's business—and championed the cause of “clean climbing.” While traditional rock climbing implements like pitons, bolts, and copperheads do permanent damage to rock, “clean” gear like chockstones, nuts, slings, and camming devices allow for climbing without needing to hammer or drill into the surface of the rock. The introduction of clean climbing tools by Chouinard and other companies changed the sport of rock climbing again; today, the average free climber never uses a hammer or a [Page 388]drill. Chouinard Equipment eventually went into bankruptcy in 1989 as a result of liability lawsuits from amateur and beginner climbers who alleged that the equipment did not bear an adequate warning about the dangers of rock climbing. It was purchased by its employees and reemerged as Black Diamond Equipment.

Around the same time that he was introducing clean climbing, Chouinard founded Patagonia as a separate company to sell outdoor clothing. He had previously had unexpected success selling rugby shirts he had picked up on a trip to Scotland, but Patagonia was a drastic step forward, making specialized clothing for a variety of outdoor activities popular in southern California. Over time, the company had specialized in apparel for climbing, camping, skiing, surfing, and hiking. Today, Patagonia is one of the most popular American brands of such outdoor apparel.

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