Worn Wear® Stories
Well-loved gear can tell some of the best stories of our lives.
A Bosnian war refugee’s journey to a lifetime of community activism.
The joy, meditation and quiet rebellion of fixing your clothes by hand.
As a repaired shirt becomes more of an original, it still takes the author back.
What’s the secret to a really good pair of jeans? Comics journalist Sarah Mirk tells us what to look for and how to keep them in play longer.
Nearly every Wednesday, Courtney Reynolds can be found elbow-deep in a bin of someone else’s castoffs, searching for scraps of fabric and colorful quilts to deconstruct and sew into original clothing items for her three preschool-age kids, or to sell in her online shop, Napkin Apocalypse.
The zipper is one of the most elegantly functional features in design. It’s also one of the most frustrating barriers to fully recycled, easily repairable gear.
Why is it so hard to get rid of used clothes in an ethical way?
What if we could wear our garbage? That’s the idea behind ReCrafted, our line of clothing made from the scraps of used garments collected at our Worn Wear facility in Reno. It’s premium, Patagonia, upcycled. A second life for products that might not otherwise get one. ReCrafted was created by Kourtney Morgan—the designer behind some…
Patagonia is no stranger to the difficulty of throwing stuff away. We take back 100 percent of the gear you return for recycling through our Worn Wear program. In 2018, we recycled 6,797 pounds of products. But we can’t recycle or repair everything you send us. Some of it was just too well-loved during use…
I lost track of how many people asked us why we were driving into the deeper nooks of New England during the middle of winter. I knew the answer, but I’d be lying if I didn’t question the reasoning myself. The Worn Wear crew set out to visit a few snow sport communities in the…
How a pair of shorts can become a loyal companion thru and thru. Dear Patagonia, My pink Patagonia Baggies Shorts are the best shorts I’ve ever owned. In 2016, I wore them for 180 straight days when thru-hiking the 2,189.1-mile Appalachian Trail (AT); and in 2017, I wore them for 135 days while thru-hiking the…
After 48 days in the same vehicle with the same four people, five if you count Brandon’s second shadow and beloved dog Rudy (half dog, half human), one is ready for a week of weekends. We romped around for the better part of the last two months, running from Squaw Valley, to Aspen, to Jackson…
See what happens to your beloved gear at the Patagonia Repair Center. Welcome to Patagonia’s Repair Center, where we’ll do just about anything to keep your gear in play. We love fixing gear that’s been worn into near oblivion by our customers. It means we did our job (build beautiful product for years of hard…
The jacket was probably red once but it’s now more of a muddy pink with an overlay of permanent scuff and smudge. The zipper, replaced four years ago, stands out a little brighter. The interior sports a size tag (Kids XXS) but has no hand-me-down label—it predates that Patagonia tradition. Around 13 years ago, it…
In a landscape of disposable ski and snowboard fashion, fixing and keeping your snow gear in play is the most radical act we know.
At Patagonia, we think the most beautiful product is really designed by you.
We’re a little more than halfway through the tour here in the United States and can’t decide what’s worse: the summer heat down in the South or the demolition y’all do on your garments! Truthfully, we’re not fazed by either. We love the challenging repairs being thrown at us and don’t mind a bit of…
We’ve entered our sophomore year of touring, and I’d say the gathered experience of our ambitious freshman year are proving invaluable.
This sounds like a big leap—but it’s not. All you need is a sewing kit and a set of repair instructions.
In the spring of 2015, Patagonia hired me to document a lively traverse across the United States—the Worn Wear tour. The story is as follows. “What in the heck is that thing you got there?” mutters a middle age lady smoking a cigarette out back of the service station. “It’s a mobile clothing repair wagon,” I…
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,…
Today’s advertisement appearing in The New York Times: It’s Fashion Week, when the design world turns its attention to what’s new. We’d like to point out something better: what lasts. While we’re proud of the quality and performance of Patagonia clothes, every new thing we make – everything anyone makes – costs nature more than…
Mark Sensenbach perches on a stool, back slightly hunched, eyes down, brows narrowed in concentration. His hands, toughened by mountains and work, maneuver the rubber sole of a climbing shoe against a sanding wheel. His movements made smooth by practice, Mark runs the shoe back and forth, rotates and repeats. He draws it away from…
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…
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…
A few years ago I bought a cheap portable radio for $4.99 to listen to the news while I walk to work. Soon after, one of the earphone buds broke. No problem, I thought – I’ll just fix it using parts from my drawer of other broken electronics. No such luck: the whole radio, including…
A lot of people are afraid to wash and dry their down jacket. Turns out, it’s not much harder than washing a pair of jeans. Like flocks of swirling swallows or shimmering schools of tropical fish, our customers swoop in with mysteriously synchronized concerns and questions on a regular basis, prompting the need for ready…
