Eddie Bauer is a regional icon in the Seattle area. Along with REI, I have been familiar with its products since my childhood, much of which was spent outdoors. Founded in 1920, the store made a name for itself as a supplier of quality outdoor clothing and gear to military, scientific and exploration expeditions.
Founder Eddie Bauer started out at 21 years of age selling sports equipment on a seasonal basis. As he matured and developed his business sense, Bauer began to patent useful designs, such as the quilted down jacket, which became standard government issue for airmen in the Army Air Force during WWII (my grandpa, a WWII B-17 gunner, was a big fan). He also sold a great many backpacks, pants and sleeping bags to the US military, which were used in campaigns from the snowy Aleutians to steamy Guadalcanal.
Eddie Bauer’s popularity with American soldiers and airmen during the war carried over to the postwar years, as former military men signed up in droves for his mail-order catalog. Up to that point Eddie Bauer’s growth and popularity was fuelled entirely by men, who were his sole customers. However, he soon began to produce women’s clothing as well, which was probably a logical choice at the time given the maturity of the company. Little did he know at that point that he was sowing the seeds of the company’s eventual downfall.
During the 1960s the company continued to hold to its tradition of providing rugged gear to real men who worked and played hard. The first American to scale Mt. Everest wore Eddie Bauer gear, and it continued to be a favorite amongst explorers and scientists on expeditions to such inhospitable places as Antarctica.
However, after Eddie Bauer sold his company to partner William Niemi in 1968 to retire at the age of 69, the company took a decided shift in another direction. Niemi set out to broaden the appeal of Eddie Bauer by greatly expanding the emphasis on women’s clothing and casual wear. This trend continued after he sold the company to General Mills in 1971. Dropping the emphasis on outfitting expeditions, General Mills focused on branding, forming a partnership with Ford to put the Eddie Bauer logo on Broncos and Explorers. I distinctly remember particularly wealthy women driving these things around during the late 1980s and early 90s.
Spiegel bought Eddie Bauer in 1988, opening hundreds of additional stores. Soon, Eddie Bauer was selling table linens and comforters to a growing female clientelle. The company’s rugged origins were increasingly obscured by the softer, gentler products that filled the greater part of its stores. Eddie Bauer became a brand detached from its roots, and many began to see it as the preserve of middle-aged housewives.
While Eddie Bauer’s transformation to the Martha Stewart genre was still in full swing and close to completion, I often visited the corporate headquarters. I was a courier at the time, and it was 1994, before the digital revolution. Back in those twilight days before the internet took off, couriers were used to ferry proofs, photos and designs back and forth between model shoots, photographers, corporate design teams and printers. It was a fun job, despite the danger and lousy pay, and I enjoyed being on my own out on the road. I probably visited Eddie Bauer about three times a week, spending many an idle minute waiting for someone in corporate to sign off on the delivery. What I remember is a heavily female staff. Not only the receptionists, but the managers and designers as well. The entire atmosphere was soaked in estrogen — the only affiliated men I dealt with were the photographers and the guys in the print shops downtown, and they weren’t even employees.
Eddie Bauer, for all intents and purposes, had become a women’s apparel store by the late 1990s. The stores were all filled with soft, synthetic clothing made in China for pennies and then marked up on the strength of the Eddie Bauer brand. The company was selling junk from the point of view of the typical man, but for a time it was a very popular trend. However, like all trends that lack substance and are feminine in nature, it was bound to go out of fashion sooner or later, and sure enough sales started to slip badly about seven years ago. Faced with competition from Abercrombie and Fitch, another former men’s clothing store that actually outdid Eddie Bauer in selling cheap, effeminate junk, quarterly sales declines in the teens became common.
Finally, the recession delivered the coup de grace, and Eddie Bauer declared bankruptcy in July of this year. Now struggling to recapture some of the essence of the company in its virile, younger days, Eddie Bauer has teamed up with real mountaineers to once again sell products worthy of real men. Their new line, First Ascent, is the centerpiece of this effort. Perhaps there is still hope for Eddie Bauer, but if the girl with the pastel helmet and pink climbing rope on the header is any indication, maybe not.
