I love Filson clothing. It is well made, generally made in the USA from US materials, wears great, lasts forever.
My grandfather pretty much lived in an entire wardrobe of their products, then again he bought his in the 1940s, and my mother inherited his stash, and is still using it.
It has one major flaw in my opinion - it is priced incredibly dearly. The demand from fashionistas has driven up the cost of Filson clothing to insane levels. (And also forced them to put some urban-lumberjack-oriented products in their lineup, as true Filson clothing is meant for more robust environments.)
Anyways, I needed a new pair of all-wool pants for wilderness search and rescue. You aren't allowed to go out with any cotton clothing in your possession, it gets wet, you get cold, you die.
Filson makes the ideal pants for my need, the "Mackinaw Field Pants". They are alas $245. Too much for pants to wear for a specific, fairly rare purpose. And unappealing to my basically frugal nature.
Filson is based in Seattle. As it happens, they have a *real* factory outlet store about 60 miles north of Seattle, tucked into a hole-in-the-wall strip mall, too far from civilization for the wealthy hipsters of Seattle to bother driving up to. It is conveniently on the way to the dock that leads to my island however. Their selection is quite limited in size and style and color. It's all first-quality goods that aren't selling, or that they overproduced. I dropped by the outlet yesterday, and amazingly, they had just the correct pants, in exactly my size in waist and inseam, for 60% off, and the fellow threw in a sickeningly-overpriced $60 pair of Filson leather suspenders for $20. In-and-out of the store in 10 minutes, with pants that will last a good part of another century. (My $10 wool Austrian Army surplus pants finally met their end on a rescue last year, and they dated from the 1950s.)
http://www.filson.com/products/macki...nts.14010.html
I suppose their stuff may be frugal even at list price, since it lasts multiple generations if cared for, but I have a hard time with the initial investment.
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But, did it occur to you that by purchasing these clothes, you might be taking the rice right out of the mouths of the children of garment workers in Asia and Central America?
Originally Posted by Packy
