Men's Marmot Fashion Brand

In April 1971, University of California Santa Cruz students Eric Reynolds and Dave Huntley were in Alaska's Juneau Icefield on a school Glaciology project. It was there on a glacier that the idea of a Marmot Club began. To become a Marmot, you had to climb a glaciated peak with another Marmot. One of the rules of the club was that everyone was President. Most of the other rules dealt with a collegiate fascination for bodily functions. The founding is told as a story, glacier and all, and it is kept whole - including the humor, which is part of the record of who these founders were.

A club whose membership test is climbing a glaciated peak with another member is not a marketing device; it is a user's club. The Marmot idea began, on this record, with two students who were on the ice for a glaciology project and set themselves a standard - the gear that followed was made by climbers, for a club of climbers, before it was made for a market. That origin is the right frame for everything the brand later sold.

Dorm-Room Down, Then a Company (1974)

Throughout that summer and over the next two years, Eric and Dave also began making prototypes of down products in their dorm room. Their first products were a down vest, a sweater and a parka and, later, three down sleeping bags. Note the order: clothing first - vest, sweater, parka - then the sleeping bags. Down is the founding material in every case, chosen because the founders' own environment, Alaskan ice, punishes any insulation that fails. A dorm room is an unlikely factory, but the prototypes were tested by the club's own rule the moment a Marmot wore one up a glaciated peak.

In the spring of 1974, Marmot the company was born. Three years separate the glacier idea from the company, and both dates are precise - April 1971 for the club idea, spring 1974 for the company - so they are not blurred into a single founding year. The company today is stated in its own words: we are a company of athletes and adventurers who love being outside and have been driven to share that passion with others since 1974. The men's range it files is clothing, footwear and accessories for outdoor adventure - everything your adventure needs, to hit the slopes and explore the trails.

The buying context is winter first: Marmot men's apparel is perfect for winter sports - recreational activities played on snow or ice, including skiing, ice skating, snowboarding and sledding - and great for hiking as well, with its snow pants route in this page's links. Judge a Marmot piece, then, by the founders' own test: insulation and weather protection that would earn their keep on ice, in garments the company of athletes and adventurers would take to the slopes or the trail themselves.

Reading This Marmot Record

Read as a buying guide, this is the outdoor record of the M letter: a 1971 glacier-born club, down prototypes sewn in a dorm room, a company from the spring of 1974, and a men's range of clothing, footwear and accessories built for winter sports and hiking. The dates to hold are the pair given - 1971 for the idea, 1974 for the company - and the products to hold are the first ones named: the down vest, sweater and parka, and the three down sleeping bags that followed.

Marmot, under M in the Men's Fashion Brands directory: founded as an idea on the Juneau Icefield in April 1971 by Eric Reynolds and Dave Huntley, and as a company in the spring of 1974, by athletes and adventurers who love being outside.

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