Clothing Company Definitions — United States clothing company definitions from Apparel Search
The North Face, Inc. is an outdoor product company specialising in outerwear, fleece, footwear and equipment such as backpacks, tents and sleeping bags. Its clothing and equipment lines are catered towards climbers, mountaineers, skiers, snowboarders, hikers and endurance athletes. The brand was established in 1968 in San Francisco, California, when Douglas Tompkins and Dick 'Hap' Klopp created an equipment retail store, and the name was chosen because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is generally the most difficult face to climb. The North Face is now a wholly owned subsidiary of VF Corporation and is based in San Leandro, California.
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The North Face, Inc. is an outdoor product company specializing in outerwear, fleece, footwear, and equipment such as backpacks, tents, and sleeping bags. The clothing and equipment lines are catered towards wilderness chic, climbers, mountaineers, skiers, snowboarders, hikers, and endurance athletes.
The North Face brand was established in 1968 in San Francisco, California, when Douglas Tompkins and Dick "Hap" Klopp created an equipment retail store that eventually acquired the current name "The North Face". This name was chosen because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is generally the most difficult face to climb. By the 1980s, skiwear was added to the line of products, and eventually camping equipment was added as well. The North Face is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the VF Corporation.
Today, The North Face is based in San Leandro, California, near its corporate sibling, JanSport. JanSport is the world's largest backpack maker, and together, JanSport and The North Face manufacture nearly half of all small backpacks sold in the United States.
The North Face's logo consists of a slightly skewed quarter-circle with two lines running within it. This image is an interpretation of Half Dome, a rock formation in Yosemite National Park, viewed from the west, with the sheer north (or northwest) face of Half Dome to the left.
The North Face maintains strong links with the outdoor community through its sponsored athlete program. Athletes such as Lizzy Hawker who recently won the Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc have benefited greatly from the programme.
In addition to selling through outdoor retailers, The North Face operates 34 retail locations in the United States (as of June, 2009), and additional retail locations can be found worldwide.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s with the rise of wilderness chic, The North Face became a well-known brand and its popularity, especially among youth and college students, increased substantially. An upper-end The North Face winter jacket currently costs about $500 USD. Due to the high demand for and the high prices of these products, a market developed for counterfeit (illegally replicated) The North Face goods. Sold on eBay or in other unregulated venues, counterfeits can usually be detected by their misplacement of logos and obvious inferiority of craftsmanship. In addition to this, many counterfeit The North Face products are not made of Gore-Tex or HyVent, despite being so marked.
For the same reasons that The North Face products are counterfeited, they are also prime targets for theft. In early 2005, a group of teenagers from Washington D.C. were arrested on charges including the armed robbery of specifically The North Face jackets from randomly picked students on the street. Allegedly, the thieves would then resell the products for a substantially decreased price.
The massive counterfeiting has prompted the creation of a website with information for consumers intending to purchase North Face items online in 2004. In August 2007, Businessweek interviewed the owner and featured the site in one of their articles.
The above definition about the clothing company The North Face is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The information source is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and was originally obtained from the following page address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face. The definition has been modified by the Apparel Search Company in June 2009. The rest of this page and other pages on Apparel Search are NOT under the free document license.
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The North Face began as a shop. The brand was established in 1968 in San Francisco, California, when Douglas Tompkins and Dick 'Hap' Klopp created an equipment retail store that eventually acquired the current name, The North Face. The name was chosen because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is generally the most difficult face to climb, so the brand named itself after the hardest version of its customers' own activity. A retailer that serves climbers and mountaineers learns exactly what equipment fails and what is asked for and not stocked, and that knowledge is the usual starting point for a store that grows into a product company.
The product range is recorded plainly: outerwear, fleece, footwear and equipment such as backpacks, tents and sleeping bags, with skiwear added to the line by the 1980s and camping equipment added as well. The clothing and equipment lines are catered towards climbers, mountaineers, skiers, snowboarders, hikers and endurance athletes. That is a technical customer list. Outerwear and fleece for mountaineering and skiing must insulate and shed weather in layers, tents and sleeping bags are judged on weight against warmth, and backpacks on fit under load, so a brand serving these users competes on performance specifications first and appearance second.
The company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of VF Corporation and is based in San Leandro, California, near its corporate sibling JanSport. JanSport is described as the world's largest backpack maker, and together JanSport and The North Face manufacture nearly half of all small backpacks sold in the United States. The logo is part of the identity: a slightly skewed quarter-circle with two lines running within it, an interpretation of Half Dome, the rock formation in Yosemite National Park, viewed from the west, with the sheer north face of Half Dome to the left.
The North Face maintains strong links with the outdoor community through its sponsored athlete programme, with athletes such as Lizzy Hawker, who won the Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc, benefiting from the programme. Sponsorship in technical outdoor gear serves a testing function as well as a promotional one: endurance athletes use outerwear, footwear and packs at the limits those products are designed for, and their results are visible proof to other users. Alongside sales through outdoor retailers, the company operates 34 retail locations in the United States as of June 2009, with additional retail locations worldwide.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the rise of wilderness chic, The North Face became a well-known brand and its popularity, especially among youth and college students, increased substantially, with an upper-end winter jacket costing about 500 US dollars. High demand and high prices produced a market for counterfeit goods, sold on eBay and in other unregulated venues; counterfeits can usually be detected by misplacement of logos and inferior craftsmanship, and many are not made of Gore-Tex or HyVent despite being so marked. A website giving consumers information about buying North Face items online was created in 2004 in response. The same popularity made the products targets for theft. Both problems follow from the brand's dual position: equipment trusted by mountaineers and endurance athletes, and a recognisable logo valued well beyond the outdoors by younger buyers.
The North Face brand was established in 1968 in San Francisco, California, when Douglas Tompkins and Dick 'Hap' Klopp created an equipment retail store that eventually acquired the name The North Face. Skiwear was added to the product line by the 1980s, and camping equipment followed.
The North Face specialises in outerwear, fleece, footwear and equipment such as backpacks, tents and sleeping bags. Its lines are aimed at climbers, mountaineers, skiers, snowboarders, hikers and endurance athletes.
The North Face is a wholly owned subsidiary of VF Corporation. It is based in San Leandro, California, near its corporate sibling JanSport, and together JanSport and The North Face manufacture nearly half of all small backpacks sold in the United States.