Thrilling Yarns

Thrilling Yarns

For intrepid clothing brand Craghoppers, it’s not enough that its gear performs well in the great outdoors. It’s determined to ensure it stays great (the outdoors, and the clothing) for as long as possible. David Lloyd finds out about the family firm’s latest innovations…

Published:

11.11.2023

Writer:

David Lloyd

For intrepid clothing brand Craghoppers, it’s not enough that its gear performs well in the great outdoors. It’s determined to ensure it stays great (the outdoors, and the clothing) for as long as possible. David Lloyd finds out about the family firm’s latest innovations…

“Don’t sell the sausage,” so the well-known sales maxim goes, “sell the sizzle.”

The phrase – the starting point for a million marketing seminars – neatly sums up what it is about the stuff we love that makes us connect to it on a more emotional level. 

So why do we take some brands to our hearts while others fall by the wayside? Now, there’s a question. 

The anticipation of a hearty meal, of course, taps into some deeply-wired limbic system. A reward gateway that’s fuelled our species to get to this point. But food’s not the only sure fire way to unlock a blissfully natural endorphin rush.

Think, for a moment, about spending a few precious hours outdoors, away from the daily grind, with a backdrop of sparkling rivers and lofty peaks. Or crashing surf and golden sands.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Because, ultimately, outdoor clothing brands aren’t really selling us cargo trousers or waterproof jackets. They’re selling us freedom and adventure. Lungfuls of fresh air and serotonin highs. 

So what happens when the thing you’re really selling – our pristine natural environment  – could very possibly be harmed by the very industry you’re propping up?

It’s a conundrum every bit as challenging as an icy traverse across a scree field, but it’s one that some brands are navigating more surefootedly than others.

From the outset, Craghoppers’ clothes were built to take, as they say in Yorkshire, a right battering. And, while the world’s climate might have shifted worryingly on its axis, half a century later the ground rules remain the same: Craghoppers’ kit has to be fit for whatever the great outdoors throws at it. Again and again and again.

Craghoppers, part of the Manchester-based Regatta Group – is one such brand. In its 56 year history, the company’s seen its fair share of innovation: with pioneering products such as its mosquito-repelling jackets, fleeces made from recycled plastic bottles and shoes fashioned from waste bio-materials like algae.

It’s a broad and bewilderingly high-tech approach to materials innovation that, as director Joanne Black explains, has a simple truth that threads it all together:

“The most important thing is the quality of our range. If a product lasts the longest, then, whatever the tech, it’s the most sustainable,” Joanne says.

It’s a philosophy that runs deep in the DNA of this well-respected company – one that you can trace back to Craghoppers’ pragmatic and thrifty Yorkshire roots in northern England. The brand’s early clothing ranges were forged in the wind-scoured valleys and rain-soaked uplands of the Peak District before being tested on the slopes of Everest. 

From the outset, Craghoppers’ clothes were built to take, as they say in Yorkshire, a right battering. And, while the world’s climate might have shifted worryingly on its axis, half a century later the ground rules remain the same: Craghoppers’ kit has to be fit for whatever the great outdoors throws at it. Again and again and again. 

“We get a lot of people telling us they’ve got the most amazing new technology,” Joanne admits. “We have fascinating meetings with people all over the world telling us about what they’re doing with sugar cane, or waste collected from the sea. But it’s either too expensive to produce, or it wouldn’t last a year. Without those two things, you can’t turn it into a commercial product.”

But, this season, all those fruitless pitches and presentations might well have paid off. Craghoppers’ latest first-to-market innovation is, quite possibly, its most audacious and exciting yet.

They’re calling it CO2Renu and, while it sounds like some form of mystical alchemy, the technology behind it is pure chemistry, transforming carbon emissions into ethanol which, in turn, are polymerised into fibres. 

It’s brand new clothing, made from the very greenhouse gases that furrow the brows of climate change scientists and outdoor adventure enthusiasts the world over. 

The science – developed by Taiwanese-based LanzaTech – stacks up, and so too does the end result: a fibre that can be woven into Craghoppers’ robust and mountain-ready apparel. 

“With everything we launch it’s about building a relationship with people who really understand what we’re trying to do,” Joanne says. 

“LanzaTech came to us with a product that we thought was worth investigating,” she says. “It hadn’t reached its full potential, so we worked with them to make the fabric strong, robust and colourfast.”

Stripped to its simplest science, LanzaTech harvests the effluent from steel mills in China. The CO2 emissions are diverted through a type of catalytic converter and fermented through ethanol. This allows LanzaTech to collect the trapped carbon and make a polyester out of it, which in turn can be turned into a yarn. 

“We’re garment people, not scientists,” laughs Joanne. “But after a while, we understood it and just how revolutionary this could be for our industry.”

It’s a revolution that feels timely, too. The outdoor clothing market was worth nearly $16 billion in 2022. Fashion sales may be slumping, but outdoor wear is as impervious as the granite peaks of Rockies. Evidently, more of us are desperate to reconnect with the outdoor pursuits snatched away from us during the pandemic.

The sector’s value is expected to reach nearly $23 billion by the end of the decade, with women, especially, fuelling the sector’s rise. All of which calls for ever-more factories producing ever-more garments. And, then, a lot of shipping containers, lorries and delivery vans shuttling these cargo shorts, hiking boots and fleeces around the globe. 

Using their materials know-how, Joanne and her team might well have found a way to ease the strain on the world’s resources, even just a tiny fraction. But when you’re talking big numbers, every little helps.

Together, Craghoppers’ material scientists and Lanza-Tech have devised a way to blend 30% of the carbon reclaimed from these fossil fuel-powered steel mills with recycled polyester. “They’ve created a really commercial proposition,” Joanne says, “it’s an entirely new material.

“It was an incredibly exciting moment.”

The other criteria? “It feels really nice, as well,” says Joanne. “And, if you’re wearing something on a long hike in the country, that really matters too.”

It’s this clear-headed and pragmatic approach to weaving sustainability into a successful business that remains at the core of Craghoppers’ approach. 

“If we don’t keep our eye on the commercial viability of our products we simply don’t have a business model,” Joanne says. “And when that happens, even the most sustainable clothing won’t have any impact if we’re selling a fleece that only three people can afford.” 

A third generation family business, Craghoppers’ parent company, Regatta, was founded by Joanne’s father Lionel in the early 1980s. Since then, it’s become the UK’s biggest outdoor brand, with a keen eye on making the outdoors affordable and accessible for weekend hikers and family day-trippers.

Craghoppers, which the Regatta group bought in 1995, remains its most rugged and adventurous brand while Dare2B is its slightly funkier, more fashion-forward younger sibling.

“Craghoppers will always be at the sharp edge of innovation,” Joanne says. “It’s where clothes are really put to the test. But, in time, these technologies will always filter down.

“My father always spoke about values,” Joanne says. “It was really important that you were a successful business, but that you never lost your values of honesty and respect. That underpins everything we do to this day, across all our brands.”

For Joanne and her team, the tech, the textiles and the traceability of each product matters: but so too does the army of people whose hands their products pass through on their trek to their stores and concessions around the world.

It’s brand new clothing, made from the very greenhouse gases that furrow the brows of climate change scientists and outdoor adventure enthusiasts the world over.

“We were doing responsible sourcing and sustainability even before those words were used,” she says. “My father always said it’s really important that everyone who touches our product has a positive experience.

“You can always buy cheaper,” Joanne says. “But if that means the people who make it can’t afford a decent quality of life, we’re not interested. It was drilled into me and my brother (Keith Black, the company’s co-director) from a really early age that it was really important to do the best we can. In everything we do.”

It’s why, despite the investment in LanzaTech’s first-to-market tech, Joanne’s keen to see its applications spread further than her company’s Manchester home.

“It’s about not jumping on the bandwagon and declaring ‘here’s a shiny new thing, it’s the last word in sustainability,” Joanne says, “especially if it’s not fit for purpose. We want people to buy less, of course we do, but we want them to buy right.

“Our customers work hard for their money. We stand or fall as a brand on the quality of our products. There are no shortcuts. And our retail stockists are every bit as cautious as we are,” Joanne says. “They’re in the firing line as much as us. Our clothes can not fail.”

“When you think about the fact we’re a small UK company, bringing something new to market, ahead of all the huge global brands, it’s quite humbling really,” Joanne says. 

Being first to market with an exciting new yarn is one thing, but when it comes to the bigger questions – the questions that make the great outdoors a place our future generations will want to (and be able to) spend their free time in – there’s a refreshing lack of borders within the community.

“People are trying to do the right thing,” Joanne says. “Because, ultimately, we’re all in this together.” 

Thrilling Yarns is featured in issue 19 of Ethos magazine. If you enjoyed what you read online, issue 18 is packed with innovation, inspiration and global good business stories. Grab your copy now!

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