The Cleanest Line

Worn Wear Spring 2015 Tour – Free clothing repairs and more in 15 cities across the country [Updated]

One of the most responsible things we can do as a company is to make high-quality stuff that lasts for years and can be repaired, so you don’t have to buy more of it. The Worn Wear® program celebrates the stories we wear and keeps your gear in action longer to take some of the pressure off the planet.

This spring—beginning April 4th in San Francisco—our biodiesel repair truck will travel coast-to-coast doing free clothing repairs, teaching you how to fix your own gear and selling used Patagonia clothing. Bring us your tired, well-loved clothing for repair. If you don’t have any, we’ll supply it. Fix it and you can keep it. Join us for local food and drinks and celebrate the stories we wear.

Hit the jump for the full tour schedule.

Above: Better Than New is a short film that introduces Patagonia’s new biodiesel repair wagon and pays tribute to the customers and repair techs who have kept our gear in use for over 40 years. Patagonia’s Reno Repair Department is the largest garment repair facility in the U.S.—completing about 30,000 repairs per year. Video: Dan Malloy

Our DWR Problem

Please refer to the updated version of this post for the most recent information about Patagonia’s work to improve chemical safety in our supply chain.

Patagonia—as well as other high-quality outdoor outerwear suppliers—for years relied on a Durable Water Repellent (DWR) of a certain chemistry (described below) to bead up, then disperse, surface moisture from rainwear. It is necessary, even in a waterproof jacket, to prevent surface saturation. A soggy surface creates a clammy, wet-feeling next-to-skin climate even where water does not actually penetrate the surface. The DWR we used as a standard for years was a long-chain (C8) fluorocarbon-based treatment that is highly effective and extraordinarily durable. Unfortunately, its by-products are toxic and persist in the environment, a combination that makes it unacceptable despite its excellent performance. Governments around the globe have now required chemical companies to stop making C8 DWR, so every high-quality outerwear supplier has been searching for alternatives of comparable performance.

For the past decade, we’ve carefully researched and tested every available fluorocarbon-free alternative. Many finishes—including waxes and silicones—will lower the surface tension of a fabric enough to cause water to bead up and disperse rather than saturate. But they are easily contaminated by dirt and oil and rapidly lose their effectiveness, reducing the effective lifetime of a garment.

In the Land of the Misty Giants – Patagonia Vancouver celebrates grand opening with ‘zine and party

By Danielle Egge

Until recently, our beautiful northern neighbor has gone underserved by the company. Though we’ve fought countless environmental battles in Canada and funded projects such as Groundswell, our brand brick-and-mortar presence has been minimal at best. Gallantly, Patagonia Toronto has held down the fort for us amidst all of the tuques and the, “ehs?”

This is why we are beside ourselves with stoke to announce that Patagonia now has a second store in Canada! The store is located in Vancouver, British Columbia and sits on the corner of West 4th and Maple, in the heart of Kitsilano, a cozy, walkable neighborhood that’s bustling with folks drinking good coffee and riding cool bikes. While the store can’t boast Cardiff’s ocean views, it is just up the hill from Vancouver’s most popular local beach.

Lowdown on Down: Patagonia introduces 100% Traceable Down

From this season (fall 2014) forward, all Patagonia down products contain only 100% Traceable Down. This means all of the down in all of our down products can be traced back to birds that were never force-fed and never live-plucked—we never blend with down we can't trace. The Traceable Down Standard provides the highest assurance of animal welfare in the apparel industry. We began working in 2007 to achieve this, and are the only brand to have done so.

Artwork: Geoff McFetridge

My New Travel Companion

By Lydia Zamorano

I've found my favorite yoga and bodywork prop. Not only is it made of wood, but it's perfectly portable, fits into the side of any backpack or duffel bag, and takes up next to no space in a van.

It works kind of like other massage canes would (but it's not plastic, is way cheaper, and you can make it yourself), and a bit like a foam roller (but it's not foam and I lie on it instead of roll on it). I use it to apply deep pressure to sticky, stuck and tight places in my body. It's also great for supporting the spine or joints in different yoga positions, like a mini yoga block. Once the hips are quite open, it also gives just enough height to become a support for sitting meditation—placed just behind the sitting bones.

[Above: Mid-back (rhomboid) release. All photos Lydia Zamorano Collection]

The Lost Dory – Traveling in Baja with my dad and his handmade boat

By Joe Curren

When I think of my dad, I think of roughing it in Baja and traveling up and down the peninsula in a rickety old VW Bug. For three straight years, between the ages of 13-15, my dad would pick me up in Santa Barbara and we’d make the 1,000-mile drive south to Cabo on Highway 1. We spent six weeks in summer and two weeks in winter mostly staying at my dad’s place on the East Cape, but we also camped, surfed, fished and dove along the way, and always with his handmade foam and fiberglass dory.

The trips are some of the best memories I have of my dad while growing up. Yes, we did rough it, but a bit of hardening was good for me. Traveling in Baja is a rite of passage for the Southern California surfer and getting dirty comes with the territory, especially once you venture south of Ensenada. Shipwrecks, Scorpion Bay, Seven Sisters; as a grom it was the waves that drew me in. Many hours, of course, were spent surfing. But my dad really made sure I experienced everything the land and water in Baja had to offer.

[Above: The first trip when I was 13. Many adventures lay ahead. Photo: Pat Curren]

Wooden Big-Wave Guns: Two Techniques, Same Objective

By Tony Butt

Nowadays there are a lot of people making wooden surfboards. Environmentally it makes a great deal of sense. Wood is a natural, non-toxic material that is infinitely less harmful to work with than polyester, epoxy, polyethylene or polystyrene, and that can be assimilated back into the environment once the life of the board has ended. Also, wooden boards are generally made to last longer, which reduces the environmental footprint at the manufacturing end and at the waste-management end. And if the raw material (i.e. trees from the forest or offcuts from other industries) is extracted at a rate that is slower than the rate of natural re-generation of that material, a wooden board can be close to being truly sustainable.

When one thinks of modern wooden surfboards, those that immediately spring to mind are longboards, retro-fishes and single-fins – boards where a little more weight and perhaps a little less speed are not too much of an impediment. Boards for riders whose top priority is having fun without necessarily being able to land an aerial 360.

[Above: Patrick Burnett (left) with his 11’0” hollow wood board and Jason Hayes (right) with his 11’4” agave board.]

Dirtbag Diaries: Starting Small - The Year of Big Ideas 2014

By Fitz & Becca Cahall

Plastic bags. They clog drawers, landfills, coastlines and trailheads. Recycling them is confusing and inefficient. But what if there was a way to turn the trash into something of value? Enter Industrial Designer Will Wells. Today, we bring you our annual Year of Big Ideas. We talked to contributors and friends about their goals for the coming year. Here’s to going big, traveling to new places and trying something new. And here’s to making something that will inspire others, even if it’s small. Happy 2014.



[Listen to "Starting Small" by The Dirtbag Diaries on Soundcloud]

Visit dirtbagdiaries.com for links to past episodes, featured music and to pledge your support. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, RSS, SoundCloud and Stitcher, or connect with the Dirtbag Diaries community on Facebook and Twitter. The Dirtbag Diaries is a Duct Tape Then Beer production. 

[Graphic by Walker Cahall]

Tenkara with Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia [Updated with Video]

By Jess McGlothlin, Fire Girl Photography

My watch battery died within ten minutes of setting foot on the plane about to whisk me out of Great Falls, Montana.

I should have realized it for what it was: a sign things were about to change.

I had left behind an increasingly weird existence on the Missouri River front and hopped a plane to Salt Lake and then on to Jackson Hole. The job was to cover a Patagonia women’s fly fishing press event held near Ashton, Idaho. For my part, I hopped on that plane feeling sick, stressed and generally pretty damn tired.

Forty-eight hours later found me tenkara fishing and wading on an Idaho river with Yvon Chouinard, arguably the founding father of outdoor retail as we know it today, feeling better than I have all year. Yvon, or YC as the Patagonia team calls him, founded the company in 1972 as Chouinard Equipment. He’s an old-school gentleman; patient, soft-spoken, full of incredible knowledge and incredibly, undeniably quotable.

Worn Wear – a Film About the Stories We Wear

We would like to invite you to be among the first to watch Worn Wear, a new film from Keith, Lauren, Chris, and Dan Malloy.

Worn Wear is an exploration of quality – in the things we own and the lives we live. This short film takes you to an off-the-grid surf camp in Baja, Mexico; a family's maple syrup harvest in Contoocook, New Hampshire; an organic farm in Ojai, California; and into the lives of a champion skier, a National Geographic photographer, and a legendary alpinist. It also features exclusive interviews with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.

Released as an antidote to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping frenzy, Worn Wear is an invitation to celebrate the stuff you already own.

[Video: Worn Wear - a Film About the Stories We Wear]