The Brand New, Awesome, Retrostalgic Outdoor Archive
A Utah university has created the first collection of industry marketing materials and media
The right message can make a brand’s new product pitch far more important than just selling jackets or skis or backpacks. Consider the 1972 Chouinard Equipment catalog. Chouinard, the precursor to Patagonia, made climbing hardware, and early in its ’72 catalog it published a fourteen-page essay by Doug Robinson called “The Whole Natural Art of Protection.” Robinson, and by extension, Chouinard (both the company and its eponymous founder), called for a new ethos in climbing protection, one that eliminated, or at least reduced, the use of pitons and other permanent hardware in favor of removable chocks, hexes, and stoppers, which caused less damage to the rock. It wasn’t a coincidence that Chouinard also made such hardware, but still: The essay had a profound impact on the sport and helped usher a new era of “clean” climbing.
Industry treasures such as Chouinard’s catalogs are part of a new and rapidly growing permanent collection at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Launched in March 2019, the Outdoor
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