Fashion

Clothes For Climbers

During the late sixties, men did not wear bright, colorful clothes, not outside. “Active sportswear” consisted of basic grey sweatshirts and pants, and the standard issue for climbing in Yosemite was tan cut-off chinos and white dress shirts bought from the thrift store. On a winter climbing trip to Scotland in 1970, Chouinard bought a regulation team rugby shirt to wear rock climbing. Overbuilt to withstand the rigors of rugby, it had a collar that would keep the hardware slings from cutting into the neck. It was blue, with two red and one yellow center stripe across the chest. Back in the States, Chouinard wore it around his climbing friends, who asked where they could get one. 

We ordered a few shirts from Umbro, in England, and they sold straight off. We couldn’t keep them in stock, and soon began ordering shirts from New Zealand and Argentina as well. Other companies followed suit and we soon realized that we had introduced a minor fashion craze to the United States.

‘People ask how can a Jewish kid from the bronx do preppy clothes? Does it have to do with class and money? It has to do with Dreams’

Ralph Lauren

‘Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within’

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lifshitz

‘My given name has the word shit in it. When I was a kid, the other kids would make a lot of fun of me. It was a tough name. That’s why I decided to change it.’