GEAR SPECIAL
Made in Britain
Once, Britain ruled the outdoor-gear world. Sarah Stirling charts the fall – and tentative rise – of gear that’s Made in Britain.
I
n the 1990s, Rab stitched down jackets in Sheffi eld, Karrimor crafted rucksacks in Lancashire and Berghaus built Gore-Tex jackets in Newcastle- upon-Tyne. Britain was heaving with outdoor-gear factories, now long shut. What happened? Is there any such thing as ‘British’ gear anymore? Imagine the scene: you’re taking in slack from a dynamic rope with your belay device, dressed in a softshell jacket. Your partner places his rubber rock boot, steps up and pauses to remove the cam. Consider your luck: once, none of these products were available. Falling while climbing wasn’t an option; walking in the rain meant getting wet. Britain’s outdoor-gear manufacturing industry was a key force behind the development of many of our modern essentials. From the 1960s till the 1990s, it was our Golden Age: we became a global superpower in outdoor-gear manufacture and innovation. This was surprising for two reasons: fi rstly, it boomed out of nowhere – unlike other countries we didn’t have a long heritage of ski and mountaineering manufacture – and secondly, all the industriousness was kicked off by a few hardcore British mountaineers, who decided to stay in more often and sew.
SUMMIT#74 | SUMMER 2014 | 49
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