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This is a 1970s Patagonia reverse pile cardigan. It was made from toilet bowl covers. Actually, toilet bowl covers that you see from the 70s are made of the same exact material.
That is why it’s this weird color, and that’s why it was this weird blue color. This is a cinchilla fleece. And these pockets originally were curved to kind of mimic the shape of this outer pocket inwards.
So if you put sunglasses in here, it was supposed to put the sunglasses at an angle so they wouldn’t fall into your armpit. Nowadays, I don’t think they do the same pocket construction.
Patagonia, Patagonia, Patagonia, Patagonia. I have lost my mind trying to write this article. This is the third time I’m filming it. The first one was 40 minutes long.
The second one, there was a torrential downpour. The third one, this one is going to be really good. It’s going to be the best article that I’ve ever written in my entire life.
Taylor said if I sit down and write this article one more time, she’s going to break up with me. So I got to get it right. I literally just woke up. I jumped out of bed and was like, “Babe, I got to go write the Patagonia article…again.”
I’ve read two books on the brand. I acquired over $4,000 in Patagonia equipment. I went undercover to test one of their environmentally friendly programs, and I tested all of the old Patagonia gear versus new Patagonia gear to see if it’s actually any better cuz that’s what the internet says. New Patagonia is not as good. I don’t know if I believe them on that, but I might after the testing.
The Patagonia Paradox
So hello. I’ve had so much trouble making this article because Patagonia is one of the weirdest brands out there on the planet. They are touted as the most environmentally sustainable, friendly, crazy brand, but basically, all of their clothing is synthetic.
65% of the entire world’s clothing is synthetic, and 35% of the pollution in the ocean is because of synthetic clothing. And one of their flagship products, fleece, is one of the biggest shedders of microplastics on the planet, which doesn’t make sense off the rip.
My friend Chance calls Patagonia Plastagonia. He’s very proud of that name. I told him that I would mention it in the article.
Some people think Patagonia is really hypocritical cuz they post ads like their 2011 Black Friday, where they say, “Hey, stop buying our stuff. Don’t buy this jacket.”
But then there is a huge explosion in people buying that jacket. So it seems kind of like disingenuous advertising because they are making more, and what they are making more of is oftentimes more expensive than the competition, even though they make a lot of that stuff at the same factories as the competition. And then, of course, there is the idea that the founder, Yvon Chouinard, said that he never wanted to be a businessman, but he did start two businesses, and he did become a billionaire.
The Framework
This article will be driven by the three brilliant things Chouinard did to make Patagonia the monster that it is today. That is the overall frame.
In between each of those points, we’re going to do a head-to-head competition of old Patagonia gear versus new Patagonia gear to see which version of Patagonia makes the best stuff.
And finally, we’re going to finish off with one of the greatest Patagonia brag fests of all time when it comes to the environment. Took me a while to understand it, but now I understand it.
Going Undercover: The Worn Wear Program
This article starts with a journey. I went undercover to Patagonia of Freeport, Maine, to see their worn wear repair program. Patagonia’s worn wear program is pretty cool. It’s essentially just used clothing, but you can go on Patagonia’s website, you see the worn wear version, you get a cheaper version that’s cleaned, restored, and still has a Patagonia warranty. That’s cool.
They also have a worn wear program where they will fix any garment, any brand, one fix per garment. I figured we could make it as challenging as possible.
Also, I brought in Taylor’s grandfather’s 100% wool Pendleton flannel from the 1970s that is full of holes absolutely everywhere. It is basically trashed. I met Claire, and then I forgot the other gentleman’s name, but it was very cool. The people that you see in this article are the people who were there, and they said they’d give it a shot. So they began.
Brilliant Idea #1: Make Your Products Five Times More Expensive
The most important thing that we need to understand about Yvon Chouinard is that he’s a pitbull, an absolute tank of a man. And he grew up in the golden age of outdoor sports. So he was fundamental in virtually every outdoor sport you can possibly imagine. His favorite, though, was climbing. And at the time, all that was available were iron pitons.
The thing is that when you’re climbing up a mountain, you hammer it into the mountain, and then you climb up. Absolutely everybody and their mother were using iron pitons.
And Chouinard was like I like climbing. Don’t like the iron pitons because when I pull them out of the mountain, they’re basically done. They’re one-time use. Can’t ever do anything with them again. So I’ll make them out of steel. So you can bang them in the mountain and then take them out, go up higher, and bang them in the mountain again.
So to buy them, they were five times more expensive, but they were reusable. And since they were reusable, you didn’t have to take so many up the mountain, so you had a lighter load, which meant you could go up the mountain faster.
The Origin Story
And this is some real 1950s and 60s stuff. Chouinard went to a junkyard, got an anvil, put it in the back of his car, went to the library, rented a book on blacksmithing, made a piton, and became the biggest mountaineering gear company in the United States.
I read two of his biographies, and they were both like young Chouinard hated working, so he didn’t. He worked one day a year and made three steel pitons.
After that, he bought three houses cuz they were buy one get two free. And what was really cool was that Chouinard is an active climber and a very famous climber. There are documentaries that he’s just in the background of, and that’s really how he promoted his business.
He was like, ” My pitons are better. I just flew past you on the mountain, and I was wearing these shorts, which are awesome, and I was wearing these rugby shirts imported from Scotland that are great.
And then Chouinard immediately smacks into his first environmental problem. The steel piton that was being driven into mountains all across the country was also destroying mountains all across the country, which is no good.
Gear Test #1: Vintage vs. Modern Sweater
I’m sorry, Patagonia, this is a really bad start to this comparison. It’s not a fair comparison. This is their modern wool sweater, the 50th anniversary rugby sweater.
They make a few others, but this was one of the most expensive ones. So I grabbed it, hoping it would hold a flame to an old Patagonia sweater, and it did not.
Which, in all fairness, sweaters used to be a very valuable tool when climbing up a mountain, so they had to be built differently. But this is just an entirely different animal. 100% virgin worsted wool. Fantastic fit, great price cuz it’s used. Absolutely.
We’re doing an article on sweaters next week or at the end of the month. This is one of the best sweaters on the list by an absolute long shot. So, point one, I have to give to Vintage Patagonia by a mile. This is just freaking incredible. Everything about it. Go on eBay real quick. Get one as fast as you can. You won’t regret it.
Brilliant Move #2: Help, I’ve Soaked My Undies
Chouinard comes back from a huge hike, and he’s like, “Hey, Patagonia team, huddle up. First thing I want to show you, look at this really cool rock I saw when I was on El Capitan.”
But he also was like, “I love hanging out with my friends on a Tuesday, climbing a mountain. But what sucks about that is my underwear is wet the entire time cuz it’s made out of cotton.” Bing bang boom. All of a sudden, you have Patagonia Capilene, which is their base layer. Very cool, very fun. Not as fun as fleece, which is the next thing they dove into.
The Fleece Revolution
You know how every material, every textile kind of has something that goes with it, some pattern that feels right? Like a denim robe wouldn’t feel right, but denim jeans feel extra right.
That was kind of happening with fleece. All these giant companies, all these new companies and their mother, everybody’s trying to figure out what that form for fleece. Everybody was looking for that, and Chouinard found it.
This is how he found it. First thing they did was very simple. Just flip the fleece the other way. So now the pile is on the outside. Risky for marketing because now this is a very bold piece.
But the first great thing that it did was stop the open appearance of pilling. Can’t see it anymore. And the second thing is it performed better with a pile on the outside cuz it would wick water out and dry much faster.
They also added a funnel neck, which one is like a makeshift scarf, but two could prevent your neck from getting cut up from your climbing equipment, just like the rugby sweaters. Brilliant.
We also have incredibly bold colors, which are and were fundamental to Patagonia’s success. Great for being seen when you’re climbing a mountain and want to be seen, but also is great to be seen when you’re walking the city streets and want to look really cool. It’s also great marketing.
Cuffs like this obviously got snagged or ripped up when you were climbing a mountain, but cuffs like this did not. They’re much lower key and tougher. They then made a double-faced fleece. So fleece on the inside and the outside, which is totally pillproof, warmer with a lighter weight, and just, you know, very bright and cold. Classic Patagonia. Love the orange.
The Microplastics Problem
That cracked the code, and now every single person in the world is copying this cuz it looks very cool. So Patagonia absolutely goes nuclear with their fleece, and at the same time, they’re rapidly not afraid to throw anything out and start new. They’re like, “This is our bestselling product. It sucks now. T
here’s something out better. Let’s switch it out.” And tell you the truth, there were a lot of other technologies that you may know the terms of now. Gore-Tex, fluorocarbons, DWR coatings, everything like that was coming out, and Chouinard and the Patagonia team were like, “This stuff is great. It lasts forever. It never goes away. We can’t even get it to go away if we tried.” And now in 2025, we’re like, “You should have tried.”
Literally, everything in the frame of this article right now is probably coated in a little bit of plastic. Can you see that? These are all polyester fibers that break off the fleece, fall on the ground, or go in your washing machine, and then they never go away cuz they’re made out of plastic.
And don’t worry, we’re not going to just totally gloss over that. I’m not just going to be like, “Oh, well.”
Gear Test #2: Vintage vs. Modern Fleece
But this is a comparison between the original made in the USA in 1988 retro x fleece versus the modern one, which I am wearing right now. And yeah, they are different. You can probably see the difference in the pile immediately. The vintage made in the USA one, it is a freaking tank. I can see why they’re collectible. This is stiffer, heavier, denser, the pile is higher, blah blah blah.
I did a test to see if the new ones were just as warm as the old ones. And the test said, yeah, they didn’t lose any temperature at all. But in real life, when I’m wearing this today, I’m overheating in this, not overheating in this, more comfortable in this. This pocket has some type of laminate on the inside, I think. So it’s more water-resistant.
But everything else besides the fabric, the pocket, and the fact that this has this little windtopping placket, and this does not, is equal. If you could say that’s equal, which, from the classic idea that like Patagonia is cheaping out, they’re trying to save money in any possible way they can, and that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.
Hello, editing Michael here. The reason I was saying it didn’t make sense to me was because the way you make polyester fleece. You make it, and then you shave it to the height that you want.
So I don’t really think Patagonia would save any money because they’re not shaving off a ton of polyester, and polyester is insanely cheap. So I would really assume they made these modifications for comfort or ease of wear or something like that, rather than saving money.
Understanding Recycled Materials
And another absolute smash hit from Patagonia, the better sweater of which I am wearing right now. People have said it breaks down easier, it pills easier, it doesn’t last as long, it’s thinner, and it’s not as robust.
That also doesn’t make any sense to me. And a lot of people say it’s because Patagonia now recycles everything. That Patagonia rugby sweater uses recycled wool, which is weaker than virgin wool because it’s mechanically recycled.
So it’s all ground up, then respun. So the length of the fiber is shorter, and it is not as strong. They infuse it with nylon, so it still has the strength. But that nylon is also recycled. And this polyester is also recycled.
You can do both types of recycling with synthetic fibers. You can mechanically recycle it, but you can also chemically recycle it. And if you chemically recycle it, it’s just as strong as virgin polyester or virgin nylon.
Patagonia does both, it seems. But I don’t know where they do what and when. So this could be either, which would make sense for it to pill more if it were mechanically recycled, but not if it were not mechanically recycled. I mean, uh, chemically recycled. Love the orange.
So, in order to be 100% totally fair, I will say synthetic clothing technology is the fastest-improving technology in the fabric world out there. So things can get softer and be the same strength. They can be lower pile but packed more densely. Things can improve.
And also, Patagonia has insane testing standards to make sure all of their stuff is up to a certain level of quality. That being said, I guess vintage Patagonia should get one point, but Patagonia is going to call me or something and be like, “Here’s a 30,000 rub test of new versus old, and our new stuff is better.”
Brilliant Idea #3: Put Hot People in Nice Poses
This is the grand finale and a very interesting thing at the time, and still today, actually. If you look at this picture from a website, this picture from a website, and this picture from a website, which one jumps out to you the most and feels very authentic?
When Chouinard was making a catalog for Patagonia, he had an idea and basically was like, “Guys, all of the people that wear our clothing are young, super in shape, good-looking, doing incredibly dangerous things, and they’d love to be in a catalog. Why not just have them take a picture of themselves, and we’ll use that?”
And that marketing idea is insanely effective, and Patagonia hasn’t stopped using it, and basically, everybody else copied them.
Marketing Genius
Nobody markets quite like Patagonia, and they spend virtually nothing on marketing. They just do clever things like that worn wear repair program. Obviously, that’s a good thing, but at the same time, I just heard people saying, “Oh my gosh, that is so cool.
Look at that guy who brought in an old flannel. They’re fixing it. It’s not even Patagonia.” Marketing like crazy. Taylor called Oliver Family, and it’s like Patagonia is fixing Gar’s flannel. They run ads that say, “Don’t buy our stuff.” A lot more people buy their stuff. And nothing hits harder than a note from this mysterious mountain climbing man that started Patagonia, Chouinard.
The Three Notes
He wrote three. This is the finale. I just got to stick this landing. So let’s go. The first note Chouinard wrote was for Chouinard equipment. It was called a note. In that note, he said, “Hey guys, our steel pitons are destroying the mountains. We made these aluminum chocks that work like this. Just put something in the crevices of the mountain that will secure you so you don’t damage it at all.”
He took a risk. It could have killed this business, but it didn’t. The aluminum chock exploded. The piton went the way of the dodo. Chouinard had climbed to El Capitan to prove how effective it was. Great marketing again.
The second note he wrote was called a reality check. And this one was about Patagonia. He was basically saying, “Hey guys, so we found out that our clothing is not that good, but at the same time, cotton is not that good, and wool is not that good. So the only answer is that you guys should probably buy less of it.” But importantly, the book goes on to say, “The company took no serious steps to limit growth at that time. The letters led to an increase in sales.” Patagonia is very openly pleading for you to buy less, but they are making more and growing every year.
And Chouinard’s friends, some of them who also started giant outdoor businesses, said, “Chouinard, do what I did. Sell the company. Make like a billion dollars or $300 million. Buy a ton of land. Do whatever your beliefs are. Just do it if that’s what you want.” And he said, “No, I will not do that.” And he doubled down and grew Patagonia even more.
The Business Philosophy
Chouinard grew up in a very different time than I grew up in. His first car was a Ford Model A. That’s like the second car ever made. When he was forming Patagonia, the highest achievement he could probably want was to be the same size as L.L.Bean. That was one of the biggest outdoor companies on the planet.
But what’s crazy is that L.L.Bean at that time was 50 times smaller than Patagonia is today. Levi’s was four times smaller than Patagonia is today.
Refusing to Compromise
When brands went global, everything changed. All of a sudden, these huge beacons of quality from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and everything like that, were like, whoa, we can make a lot more of our stuff for a lot cheaper and make way more money.
All we need to do is cut quality to make things faster and cut some things that, logistically, we just can’t keep up with. If we’re making a business this big, how can we do lifetime warranties or customer service and stuff like that? So they cut it.
What Chouinard did was actually not change anything. He grew up in the 70s when clothing was a lot more expensive than it is today. But people bought it like they were buying a refrigerator. They were like, “Well, I don’t want my Patagonia fleece to not be good in 2 years. I want it to be good for like 50 years. So give me the best one. I’ll pay more for that.”
And what made Patagonia so notable is that the entire business structure is the same as a 70s business structure. Crazy lifetime unbeatable warranties, insane repair program, great customer service, high quality control, and it’s expensive. But that’s part of the whole thing.
And Chouinard’s mentality is, look, Patagonia can only be made through revolutionary times. There’s not going to be another Apple until there’s a new revolutionary technology because Apple is now the king.
So his thought is not to sell the company, but rather become a giant bully to the supply chain around the world and try and make a difference that way.
The Brag Fest: Patagonia’s Environmental Impact
And this is if you’re a big Patagonia fanboy, this is the brag fest you’ve been waiting for. Patagonia has had a hand in revolutionizing organic cotton, RWS wool, global labor rights, plastic recycling, wet suit insulation technology, repair and use merchandise infrastructure, dye technology, hemp growing, certified B corporations, 1% for the planet, and funding research for dangerous chemicals and microplastics.
Basically, remember the Fjällräven article where Donna Bruns was like, “Part of my job is dragging global suppliers behind me, kicking and screaming to be more eco-friendly, and it’s really hard work.” Imagine Donna and Fjällräven are fighting this battle against the suppliers like it’s a Marvel movie, and then the big music starts playing. Patagonia flies in on a fire-breathing fleece, and they punch a zipper maker in the face and say, ” Make the zippers without PFAS. Zipper company is not going to want to lose the Patagonia account.
That’s probably like 50 million zippers a year. So they change how they make zippers, and then that affects the global zipper supply. Gosh, so glad I got to use that graphic. Holly made this graphic for the first article, and I was like, I better figure out a way to put this in this article.
The Real Impact
So put all that together, and Patagonia’s worn wear program has done a million pieces. But that repair infrastructure that they started may have done a billion. Who even knows? The actual impact that they’ve had on the clothing world is unfathomable.
So, regardless of your viewpoint on Patagonia, what you think about the brand and all of that, at the very least, they are saying, “Hey guys, we severely screwed up, and we are still screwing up. We’re not doing a good job now, but we’re going to see if we can figure out how to fix this before your great-grandchildren are making snow angels out of microplastics the same color as our fleeces.”
Watch This Article
Goodbye!
And all of that put together into one thing is why people love Patagonia so much. So that’s all I have. Are they that good? You can choose. I have to go home.
The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.
