![](https://www.patagonia.ca/dw/image/v2/bdjb_PRD/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-PatagoniaShared/default/dw4fe1023e/hero/sparks_k_0651_cc_WEB.jpg?q=85&sw=334&)
Design Stories
![The 150-Mile Test](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/noll-e-0014-cc-web-9x16-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
A Patagonia advanced R&D designer takes to the Swedish alpine to test out a new pack prototype—and a bold idea for rethinking multiday trail travel.
![What We Do Video Series](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/davis-t-3373-cc-web-2560x1920-1-768x576.jpg.webp)
Want to see what goes on behind the scenes at Patagonia?
![Say Goodbye to “Forever Chemicals”](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/davis-t-3204-cc-web-hero-768x432.jpg.webp)
How we’re finally making waterproof materials without PFAS and PFCs—and why it took so long.
![Illustration of a person wearing an orange shirt and blue jeans kneeling in their garden picking lettuce.](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/pat-f21-denim-cartoon-heroimage-768x432.jpg.webp)
What’s the secret to a really good pair of jeans? Comics journalist Sarah Mirk tells us what to look for and how to keep them in play longer.
![Unfinished Business](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/davis-t-2908-2250x1266-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
When it comes to making more responsible jeans, our work is never done. And, of course, we leave the really dirty work to you.
![Colin Haley’s Clothing System for Alpine Climbing in the Chaltén Massif](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/buhl_f_0002-1200x675-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
6,000 words about dressing for alpine climbing you didn’t know you needed to know.
![Polyester](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/davis_t_2735-768x432.jpg.webp)
85% of Patagonia’s polyester this season is recycled. Using recycled polyester, rather than virgin petroleum polyester, reduced our seasonal carbon emissions by over 5,600 metric tons of CO₂e.
![Down](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/davis_t_2732_cc_web-16x9-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
Eighty percent of the down we're using this season is recycled. The new down is Advanced GTDS Certified.
![All the Hemp That Fits](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/davis_t_2749-16x9-2-768x432.jpg.webp)
Patagonia has 73 styles using hemp this season. Cultivation of hemp replenishes vital soil nutrients, prevents erosion and requires no synthetic fertilizer.
![Fire Up the Test Tank](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/sparks_k_0436_cc_web-2250x1266-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
There’s nothing more important than having waves a few minutes away.
![How We Turn Scraps into New Gear](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/aug19_102a_ross_lauren_0054-1600x883-768x424.jpg.webp)
What if we could wear our garbage? That’s the idea behind ReCrafted, our line of clothing made from the scraps of used garments collected at our Worn Wear facility in Reno. It’s premium, Patagonia, upcycled. A second life for products that might not otherwise get one. ReCrafted was created by Kourtney Morgan—the designer behind some…
![Letter from Tuscany (Where We Get Our Used Wool)](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/capolongo_d_0002-1600x883-768x424.jpg.webp)
She went to Italy to see how recycled wool is made and discovered that everything has an impact, including recycled.
![Drawing from the Landscape](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ironwood_img_3349-1600x883-768x424.jpg.webp)
Patagonia Designers on the ‘Celebrating Public Lands’ Collection
![A Conversation with Surfboard Designer Fletcher Chouinard](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/mackinnon_a_0349_cc_web-1600x883-768x424.jpg.webp)
At Fletcher Chouinard Designs, the focus is on durable, high-performing equipment that lets you have fun no matter what the ocean is doing. There are never enough hours in a day for Fletcher Chouinard. As a surfer, shaper, kiteboarder and new father, he was really doing the dance. Then along came foilboarding, which has made…
![Hemp Is Back: How Some of Ours Is Produced, in Photos](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/belcher_l_0041_1600tcl-768x424.jpg.webp)
It’s hard not to notice the hype around hemp today. Pick up any lifestyle magazine, enter a pharmacy, talk to a health-food store employee or just the person next to you in yoga class—at some point you’ll learn about its miraculous powers. In particular, near-unbelievable claims swirl around cannabidiol, or CBD, oil derived from hemp:…
![Getting the Snow Industry Excited About Recycled Fabrics](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/header_NOV18_grove_g_1234_cc-768x424.jpg.webp)
Before we could challenge the snow industry to move to recycled materials, we had to change our thinking, too. There are a number of ways to reduce a garment’s impact, but none more significant than making it out of recycled fabric. Doing so keeps material out of landfills and cuts demand for the petroleum used…
![Introducing Woolyester](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/davis_t_2475_1600TCL-768x424.jpg.webp)
Three years ago, we set out to make a new fleece fabric using natural fibers that were light on the land. Our inspiration came from an old sweater, a weather-beaten merino pullover worn by founder Yvon Chouinard in Patagonia’s early days. It had all the properties that have made wool a staple for centuries of…
![Baggies Shorts throughout the Years](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/woodward_f_0664_cc_web-2250x1266-1-768x432.jpg.webp)
To celebrate over three decades of Baggies Shorts, we dug through our archives so we could share the stories behind a few iconic photos.
![After hard crimping right off the glacier, Kate Rutherford sinks her fingers into the climbing above. Pointe Adolphe Rey, Chamonix, France. Photo: Bernd Zeugswetter](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/zeugswetter_b_0151_SNOW16_cc_WEB_1600TCL-768x424.jpg.webp)
When I think about climbing, I don’t think about summits. I see serrated ridgelines rising and falling between earth and sky, and sunlight slipping between spires, casting the shadows of giants onto rubble-strewn rivers of ice below, curving, moving, bending with the passage of time. I remember my partners and I, roped together with no…
![It All Adds Up to Nothing: Forging the Micro Puff](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/sparks_k_0585_1600TCL-768x424.jpg.webp)
At Patagonia, our best ideas come from being in the field. But sometimes simple problems inspire complex solutions. That’s been the case with the development of insulation. Down gets wet and loses its heat-trapping loft, and synthetics never quite achieve the same warmth, lightness or compressibility as down plumes. We’ve tried everything from treated down…
![Photo: Garrett Grove](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/grove_g_1049_cc_WEB_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
“For us, the tide is the boss,” says Adam James of Hama Hama Oysters, a fifth-generation, family-run shellfish farm on Washington’s Puget Sound. “In late August and September, we’ll be out there on the beach harvesting at 3 or 4 a.m., and when the sun finally comes up you can’t help but pause. It reminds…
![Photo: Tim Davis](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/OCT17_davis_t_2323_cc_WEB_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
Miles Johnson, our senior creative director, oversees the work of all our designers in both technical and sportswear categories, as well as the product development and textile, graphics and color teams. We caught up with Miles recently at the picnic tables outside our child care center to ask him about his life and work and…
![Photo: Travis Rummel](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/rummel_t_0016_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
It didn’t take long for Ben Wilkinson to figure out that there was freedom to be had in working for himself—and that freedom was the first requirement if he wanted to go surfing whenever the waves got huge. “I left home when I was 16,” he remembers, “which was old enough in my eyes. But…
![Photo: Mark McInnis](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/mcinnis_m_0078_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
Patagonia is an unusual workplace in many ways, and the fact that employees are encouraged to incorporate environmental activism into their daily work is just one of the characteristics that sets our company apart. The realities of running a business are important, but we’re always aware that our business has to serve the more pressing…
![Photo: Colin McCarthy](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/mccarthy_c_0012_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
Forty-five years ago, the old school North American outdoor uniform was basically colored in khaki, denim blue and olive green. Not only were the colors monotonous, but the dyes used were mostly petroleum based. Imagine no Craft Pink as vivid as the beavertail cactus flower. No Galah Green as bright as the waters off the…
![Photo: Jarrah Lynch](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/X2_2953_featured-768x424.jpg.webp)
Almost a decade ago, I’d heard stories of mystical right points peeling forever without another soul in sight. What surfer addicted to logging wouldn’t crave to check it out, even though it meant ignoring travel warnings and venturing into a region suffering from civil unrest? Young, naive and most probably foolish, I set off on…