In Patagonia (Clothing): A Complicated Greenness

Abstract

The Patagonia clothing company makes outdoor and casual clothing which is both functional and stylish. Although concerned with style and image, the company distances itself from any association with “fashion.” They identify their “core-customer” as a very fit person who aspires to step outside mainstream society, and who engages in extreme sports through which they have transformative experiences in sublime wilderness landscapes. Patagonia's marketing strategies and business practices intentionally minimize environmental damage, promote sustainability, and encourage people to appreciate wilderness and what can be experienced in it. Even assuming that the company has the best of intentions, the fact is that their marketing practices, and the messages they convey—about the integrity of practices, and the sublime aesthetic that motivates them—in fact increase consumption well beyond the needs of their “core-customer.” With today's movement towards eco and ethical production, companies will follow different paths in addressing, or appearing to address, “green” concerns. This article traces the trajectory of one company, Patagonia, over the past four decades.Patagonia's story illustrates the paradoxes that often arise when “green” practices actually increase consumption. I argue that Patagonia has a double greenness in its combined discourses of sustainability, and also of nature as place of transformation. This intermeshing of practicality and desire comprises what I call a complicated greenness. Customers buy what is “ecofashion” (despite the company's rhetorical distance from fashion) and in the process may literally “buy into” a process that carries forward the very economic and ecological trajectory they would ideally curtail.

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