Worn Wear Stories
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…
A Bosnian war refugee’s journey to a lifetime of community activism.
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…
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 2,650.1-mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). I wore them every day, all day and…
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…
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 use) and you did yours (play like hell). In our 40 years…
Lasting Function and a Commitment to Repair In a landscape of disposable ski and snowboard fashion, fixing and keeping your snow gear in play is the most radical act we know. On average, most of us keep a piece of clothing for just three years, yet the materials and processes for making any new garment…
At Patagonia, we think the most beautiful product is really designed by you. Every tear, stain and duct tape patch proves the bond that can develop between a person and their gear. Our Worn Wear repair program helps keep your well-loved clothes in action longer and provides an easy way to recycle Patagonia garments when…
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…
I had forgotten about the highway head turns and hollars, the uncompromising loyalty to garments that are decades older than me, the vastness and variety of this continent. The chorus of Worn Wear sentiments sing: on the road again. Anne Graham mending cuffs on a ’90s-era Snap-T. Photo: Donnie Hedden We’ve entered our sophomore year…
This holiday season, I have an early New Year’s resolution for the sake of Planet Earth: let’s all become radical environmentalists. This sounds like a big leap—but it’s not. All you need is a sewing kit and a set of repair instructions. As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet…
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…
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 answers. Times like these, nothing would be more handy than magically beaming knowledge out into the ether. Our very own Old School is here to…
Sartorialists say that clothing makes the man, and in that spirit – meet Christo Grayling. Editor's note: Patagonia clothing designer, John Rapp, shares the type of letter we love to receive from our customers. All photos courtesy of Christo Grayling. I recently had a pair of 15-year-old board shorts sent to me from a Canadian…
It's happened to all of us. You're out surfing and you keep noticing how cold the water is. You try to write it off but when you finally get out of the water and pull your wetsuit off, you see it: the dreaded neoprene tear. Fear not, as the guys at Korduroy.tv show you how…
It's happened to all of us. You're out surfing and you keep noticing how cold the water is. You try to write it off but when you finally get out of the water and pull your wetsuit off, you see it: the dreaded neoprene tear. Fear not, as the guys at Korduroy.tv show you how…
Our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are our front line of communication with Patagonia fanatics far and wide. The crew here at our Call Center in Reno, NV are at it seven days a week, taking orders, helping with returns, and most importantly, answering the astonishing range of questions our customers fire at us. Like flocks…
“The scent of these armpits is aroma finer than prayer.” – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass Stink. Funk. Putrescence. Miasmal malodorous mank. Each of us has our own finely tuned threshold for bad smells. But it’s safe to say this universal holds true: there comes a time when our clothes become smelly enough that we…