Culture Study Podcast - The Outdoor Gearification of the American Wardrobe

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. I wanted to give you a heads up about some of the episodes we're working on so you can submit your questions.

00:00:05.840 We're doing a crossover episode with Forever 35 all about pursuing hobbies as an adult.

00:00:11.580 So much to talk about.

00:00:13.280 And speaking of hobbies, I need you all to binge the current season of Love is Blind and submit all your thoughts and questions

00:00:18.260 because I'll be recording an episode with Adi Cornish at the end of the month after we've all seen it and digested it.

00:00:24.680 This is going to be my first time watching it.

00:00:26.940 So I'm coming out as a newbie, whereas Adi has been watching it for the entire run.

00:00:32.820 This is going to be fantastic.

00:00:34.920 And speaking of Love is Blind, we want all your questions about dating culture right

00:00:38.920 now.

00:00:39.420 How's it going?

00:00:40.160 What's working?

00:00:40.740 What's not working?

00:00:42.240 What are the conversations that you're having about dating culture?

00:00:45.000 What trends are you seeing?

00:00:46.740 Any questions in that direction?

00:00:48.400 So those are just three of the episodes that we've got in the works.

00:00:51.580 For a full list of what's coming up, you can check the show notes for this episode.

00:00:56.220 And as always, you can submit your questions for these episodes and for the Ask Anne Anything

00:01:00.920 segment at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod.

00:01:05.460 Okay, thanks.

00:01:06.200 On to today's show.

00:01:13.140 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:01:16.820 And I'm Avery Truffleman, creator and host of Articles of Interest.

00:01:20.060 tell me about the new series of articles of interest um oh my god you're catching me at a

00:01:27.160 moment where well I don't want to do my own horn I don't want to be like it's so complicated like

00:01:32.560 how can I even begin to describe it it's kind of it almost feels like when you're trying to paint

00:01:36.760 your own when you're trying to draw your own face and you're like I don't know like my face like my

00:01:41.420 eyebrows are so like at some angles I look like this and some I'm just so in it you know I'm like

00:01:48.040 how to begin to describe and someone very easily outside could be like, yeah, it's about the

00:01:52.620 military. You know, it's so that's so interesting because I it's about the military. But to me

00:01:58.280 also in the way that it was pitched to us and the like when I tried to describe the episode to ask

00:02:03.880 listeners for questions, I was like, well, it's about outdoor performance gear. Yeah, it's actually

00:02:09.580 about the military, right? Like that's kind of the through line. Yeah, exactly. It's about the

00:02:14.220 intersection between the outdoor industry and the military and the way that they are

00:02:21.460 inextricably bound in the United States in terms of the way they look, in terms of the way they

00:02:32.680 perform, in the way they're made. They have so much in common and they're impacting the way

00:02:42.260 we all dress. We sort of all wear performance clothes. And when I say we, I mean soldiers and

00:02:52.500 civilians. Yes. We all, and this is sort of the funny thing, as soldiers sort of spend more of

00:03:03.920 their time flying drones and doors and as we spend more of our time typing on computers and

00:03:12.400 doors increasingly all of us are kind of wearing arcteryx in our ergonomic chairs and I don't have

00:03:22.860 any problem with that like I'm just saying this sentence because I think it's funny but like I do

00:03:27.360 it too. Like the state of American performance clothing is incredible. It's sort of nothing

00:03:35.140 short of a modern miracle, what clothes are able to do now. And this has resulted from a push pull

00:03:41.800 between the outdoor industry and the military. And in this time when Americans are pitted against

00:03:49.480 each other like I didn't know any soldiers until I did this research we you know it's like oh we

00:03:59.060 live in a bubble like red states and blue states but we really live in bubbles between soldiers

00:04:05.280 and civilians and there are like many different kinds of soldiers and civilians there are like

00:04:10.200 lots of soldiers who are kind of exactly like me and like think exactly like me and there are a lot

00:04:14.960 of soldiers who don't. But there are a lot of soldiers who, like, grew up in soldier families,

00:04:19.440 live in soldier communities, you know, like, kind of are bitter about civilians and, like,

00:04:24.120 makes sense. I would be too. And, you know, it's gotten to the point where we're pitted against 0.88

00:04:28.440 each other, like our president is sicking us on each other. And yet we really dress quite

00:04:34.680 similarly. It's very weird. The series gets into this a lot, but it's all the way up and down

00:04:42.520 when it comes to class like so we're talking about a $400 Arc'teryx jacket but we're also

00:04:49.160 talking about the $40 puffer jacket that you get at Old Navy or even cheaper right like some of

00:04:56.180 these are they're models of the same style that go up and down the price points and have different

00:05:02.520 understandings of like what purpose they're serving like is this is this just a warm coat

00:05:08.800 Or is this a warm coat that insulates you for like alpine climbing and like the way that it hails consumers in different ways is really, really interesting and also so historicized.

00:05:19.480 Like I loved the first episode.

00:05:21.840 There's like I think there's about 30 minutes of you talking with what's his name?

00:05:27.240 The best guy, the person you've interviewed for the most time in your entire life.

00:05:30.380 Oh, my God.

00:05:31.440 What's his last name?

00:05:32.380 Kerner. 0.98

00:05:32.700 kerner so this guy who just knows fucking everything about the history of military 0.91

00:05:39.760 uniforms essentially he's just some lawyer and he's just some lawyer who like has a real hobby 0.94

00:05:45.400 interest um but that sort of history of like how the uniforms changed over time there's just so

00:05:53.340 much to get into and we're gonna do our best but i think we should start with an episode that

00:05:57.560 served as kind of a prequel to this series. It was about zippers. So yeah, can you tell me why

00:06:03.100 is the zipper a good entry point into a series exploring the intersection of outdoor gear in the

00:06:08.580 military? Well, it's interesting because these clothes, well, it's this idea of like performance

00:06:16.560 fabric, right? These clothes are as technically important as anything else that a soldier has at

00:06:24.260 their disposal. For example, in one of the weirder, I mean, I went to a lot of weird places for this

00:06:30.160 reporting. Among the weirder places I went to was the annual army conference, like the AUSA

00:06:36.480 conference, which is kind of like, if you've, if you've ever seen the Andrew, I forget if it was

00:06:42.580 Andrew or Eugene Jarecki documentary, Why We Fight, they have the giant, you know, military

00:06:49.660 industrial complex military spending trade show showcase like that's that it's like Lockheed

00:06:56.120 Martin's there like Deloitte is there all your all the hits are there like everybody is there

00:07:01.800 it's full of all the contractors all the contractors for the military and that can be 0.77

00:07:06.900 everything from like fucking drones to like socks exactly and they're like checkout art we've got 0.56

00:07:13.000 these new whatever driverless tanks and then they'd be like we've got this jacket you know 0.95

00:07:19.300 it's like as important as anything else. And that really does start with the idea of the zipper,

00:07:28.020 because the zipper was the first time that technology was introduced into clothing.

00:07:35.520 And it took so long for the zipper to gain traction. I mean, the zipper was around for

00:07:40.660 decades until it entered clothing. And now, I mean, now it's so ubiquitous. It's something we

00:07:47.540 take for granted because now we're like I can't imagine life without it like oh my god buttoning

00:07:52.300 all these buttons but when you think about it it's so superfluous because as soon as your zipper

00:07:56.440 doesn't work the whole garment is useless totally and it's like harder to sew and so companies and

00:08:04.800 it's and at the time it was more expensive than buttons and so it's like why would we need to

00:08:08.140 upgrade buttons which are fine and cheap and totally work like why would we need to sort of

00:08:13.760 optimize clothes. They're clothes. It's fine. But the introduction of zippers was sort of the first

00:08:20.360 inkling that's like, oh, we could upgrade this. We could maximize this. We could make clothes

00:08:25.700 so that they took less time to put on. That was a place where you needed to optimize your time

00:08:32.520 was putting on clothes. Yeah. You could optimize your time. You could gearify clothes. You could

00:08:40.880 turn clothes you could see clothes in the same way that you see a gadget whatever we turned

00:08:48.860 clothes into a doohickey by adding this like piece of hardware onto it and this is when hardware

00:08:53.920 started to touch skin it started to have like a doodad on it um and then it was like off to the

00:08:59.440 races from there and now clothes have like all these features and they're not always you know

00:09:05.420 a zipper is in some ways the most tangible version but now some of the more incredible

00:09:09.960 things that clothes can do are just in the fabric you know they can like scatter radar they can

00:09:15.240 resist water I saw a fabric that was hydrophobic it was incredible they you can spill water on it

00:09:22.180 and the water curled into a ball and rolled off and then I touched it and it was totally dry it

00:09:29.600 was like a miracle the level of innovation on what fabric can do now like

00:09:38.380 amazing amazing i was like surrounded by miracles sometimes i'm frustrated like i bought this um

00:09:47.000 running jacket that's waterproof that also breathes and i had been looking for something

00:09:54.020 like this for a really long time because any like i where i live it rains all the time you

00:09:59.300 need to wear a running jacket but also almost all running jackets like do not breathe in any

00:10:04.320 capacity. So Patagonia did all of this work to come up with a running jacket that actually

00:10:09.660 breathes. And it's so expensive and I'm so annoyed. And then I'm like, this is a waterproof

00:10:15.140 jacket that breathes. Like this is a jacket I can wear to go running for my leisure time

00:10:22.200 that repels water and also doesn't turn me into a greenhouse inside. Like what in the world? Like

00:10:29.460 the marvels never cease. Of course it costs $300. It's like incredible chemistry.

00:10:34.320 You know what I mean?

00:10:35.280 It's like, and for some reason, yeah.

00:10:39.160 And it's because we're so used to paying so little for clothes

00:10:42.160 that we don't think of it as a technology,

00:10:44.520 but it's completely a technology.

00:10:46.400 No, and like I've really shifted my thinking,

00:10:48.580 especially on gear like that,

00:10:50.500 in terms of like how long do I want to have a TV?

00:10:53.380 Like I want to have a piece of gear like that for just as long.

00:10:56.660 Okay, before we go further,

00:10:58.040 we should also define a couple of terms

00:10:59.800 that I think are going to come up a little bit.

00:11:01.220 But so what is GORP core?

00:11:06.720 GORP core.

00:11:08.180 What is GORP?

00:11:09.200 What is GORP?

00:11:10.360 GORP stands for good old raisins and peanuts.

00:11:12.880 And it's like a hiking term.

00:11:14.120 You know, it's like what you eat on the trail.

00:11:15.660 And then GORP core is a term that was defined in 2017 by a former New York magazine writer

00:11:21.980 named Jason Chen.

00:11:23.300 And it was kind of a joke.

00:11:24.400 You know, it was like a cheeky New York magazine thing.

00:11:26.260 and it referred to this idea that people will wear outdoorsy stuff for fashion

00:11:33.980 more than function they'll wear their it's so funny because now i'm so used to saying they'll

00:11:41.920 wear their gorpy looking jacket but you can't define the thing with the thing they'll wear

00:11:45.780 their outdoorsy looking technical looking thing for the style of it so to me there's two pieces

00:11:51.340 of clothing that stick out in Corp Corp. One is Tevas and like wearing Tevas not to be on the

00:11:57.620 river. And the second is a real like Patagonia style dad fleece that looks like the ones that

00:12:05.740 Patagonia would make or that REI, whatever fleece company would make in the late 80s, early 90s

00:12:11.120 that is worn for fashion. I mean, I will say I do think it's like a clever little coinage and

00:12:17.380 like a cheeky little thing but you know as you heard in the first episode it is so nothing new 0.98

00:12:22.120 it's as like American as apple pie like white Americans have been doing this since the founding 0.89

00:12:31.260 they've been shopping they've been dressing more rugged than they were I think it's useful to have 0.74

00:12:38.660 a word for it and the definition of what it is what garments represent it definitely like

00:12:47.100 shifts and changes over time, but the ethos of it is like, that's who we are. That's what we do.

00:12:53.880 We dress up to look like little mountain men because we think it's cool.

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00:17:21.380 Okay, so this, and you discussed this a ton in the first episode.

00:17:25.180 So our first question will tee us up to talk about it even more.

00:17:28.080 It comes from Lauren, and Melody's going to read it.

00:17:30.380 I'm curious about the intersection between outdoor performance gear and fashion.

00:17:34.700 Why do certain brands or items that are meant to be predominantly functional become fashion

00:17:39.520 status items for people who are most definitely not wearing them for their intended function?

00:17:44.600 I'm thinking of the current trendiness of Salomon hiking shoes among NYC young adults

00:17:49.100 or Carhartt becoming a popular brand among the same group as examples.

00:17:53.320 And why does it annoy me so much to see this?

00:17:55.940 I'm generally supportive of people wearing whatever they want, but I feel like I can't

00:18:00.100 help but roll my eyes at people wearing Carhartt barn pants out to a bar in Bushwick or really

00:18:05.580 anywhere that isn't a farm or a construction site.

00:18:08.940 Okay, so the first thing I want to say is that part of why I think people wear them

00:18:15.000 or like maybe an excuse for why people wear them or maybe a justification is that they're 0.99

00:18:20.000 good fucking pants. 0.99

00:18:21.740 Yeah. 1.00

00:18:21.980 Do you know what I mean? Like, or like a Carhartt hat is a really good hat. And it lasts for a much longer than most other items. And that's part of it.

00:18:31.520 Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, the other thing is like, the thing I also want to say is that it's always really hard to know anybody's history.

00:18:40.860 also and so you know I was talking to a friend of mine who was like yeah you know I used to

00:18:46.800 work as a mechanic and now I live in Portland and I go to a bar so that's the other thing it's like 0.61

00:18:52.680 it's so easy to look around at some coastal city and be like you're all hipster dipshits but like

00:18:57.500 you don't know you maybe like maybe they have a desk job now but maybe they bought this jacket

00:19:02.720 in some other life and everyone's cosplaying all the time like I'm from Idaho and when I first

00:19:08.880 moved to the city or whenever I go to New York, I'm like, okay, what are my New York clothes

00:19:12.320 that I'm going to put on? Exactly. It's all defined by context. Yes. And there are so many

00:19:17.420 different factors that go into this. So one, oh, it's such a good question. I mean, okay.

00:19:25.460 There are a few different answers. I think the most, like, okay. Yeah. The most obvious answer

00:19:30.320 is like, they work. They're great. They're great clothes. And then there's another version of it,

00:19:36.680 which is the aspirational version, right?

00:19:39.040 A lot of these represent like luxurious mountain sports,

00:19:43.240 like an elite lifestyle.

00:19:45.140 I think it's part of why bankers started wearing Patagucci

00:19:48.780 or in a style movement in the 90s,

00:19:52.060 it's why hip hop adopted the North Face.

00:19:54.560 It's sort of like taking this elite style

00:19:57.620 in the same way that like Ralph Lauren

00:19:59.340 really got adopted by hip hop.

00:20:01.620 It's like taking this elite thing 0.67

00:20:03.480 that was so white and so untouchable and kind of like bringing it into the city um yep and so i do 0.88

00:20:11.920 think there is this level of like pearl clutching and gatekeeping that comes with with that and then

00:20:18.180 there's also this like pearl clutching and gatekeeping that comes with like hey that's

00:20:21.520 my sport you know like don't wear don't wear this for for my my my sport and we feel this

00:20:27.900 with certain things or it's like I don't know I think I'd I'd feel that way whatever I'm so not

00:20:34.620 sporty I'm like how would I feel about I'm like there's nothing I feel protective of when I see

00:20:39.140 people wearing Tevas because I'm like well because I because Tevas aren't good river shoes I'm like

00:20:45.600 if like those aren't even the right shoes to wear if you're going to be doing outdoor activities

00:20:50.320 you need Chacos but then like at least when I lived in New York Chacos were really embarrassing

00:20:55.600 and so I was like oh it's so funny to me that like the bad outdoor shoe is the one that everyone's

00:21:02.120 wearing so the reason why Teva's got usurped by Chaco's is because the velcro would like get

00:21:08.820 unstuck or it would get caught on things when you were in the raft or like outside and also they

00:21:15.900 didn't have very much support so that's how like basically in the realm of like actually using this

00:21:22.000 stuff for rafting which is how they were developed that's how they were overtaken and so like that

00:21:26.320 part of me that snobby part of me is like you're not even wearing the right thing that's a perfect

00:21:31.100 example that's like the perfect example though that these become like these minute differences

00:21:35.360 between brands and like do you have the right gear becomes this like insider like do you really know

00:21:41.000 do you really know what you're wearing and yeah some of it is some of it is aspirational some of

00:21:48.740 it is wanting to, wanting to look like you do those sports, like wanting to look like you go

00:21:55.620 outside and you have an outdoorsy life and a life outside your computer. So there's also the high

00:22:01.420 fashion bit, which is that a lot of designers are inspired by military clothes, which has always

00:22:08.460 been an ongoing thing essentially ever since the United States military began designing

00:22:16.900 their clothes in a more democratic way essentially the way the annoying thing about my show is it's

00:22:26.260 always like to explain that we have to like start in the 1800s but i'm trying to think about how i

00:22:32.180 can explain this quickly okay so if you look at like very early military uniforms the united

00:22:36.860 states kind of starts out looking like everybody else where which is to say by everybody else i

00:22:41.680 mean europe because that's who had standing armies at that time that they were in contact with yes

00:22:47.200 yeah we like we were basically still white people were basically still europeans they copied europe

00:22:51.860 and so they had these like regimental looking costumes and then they'd occasionally go on a

00:22:56.500 trip to some other european country and say oh what about that we should copy that and then there's

00:23:00.340 this turning point this really interesting turning point around world war ii where the united states

00:23:06.400 military has this moment of enlightenment and they say whoa wait what if we designed for the

00:23:13.640 military according not to like what we think looks proper in european or what some general wants

00:23:21.280 but what like works scientifically the best and what the soldiers want and it's this first

00:23:27.960 inkling of like holding up our democratic principles like let's ask the soldiers

00:23:33.080 you know also and that was when the command came that everything had to be made in america right

00:23:39.460 and that's when everything had to be made in america and it's like this this this moment

00:23:44.160 when we're like let's start something here and this is when we start introducing what we now

00:23:51.640 consider like classic american military style which is like you know you close your eyes and

00:23:57.020 you can imagine it it's like the the green field jacket it's all this style that we think about now

00:24:02.520 which at the time like close your eyes and imagine world war one right what everybody else is wearing

00:24:09.900 these long wool jackets these kind of suit looking things and then our army shows up wearing these

00:24:17.460 like layered pieces they look really technical in comparison it's kind of like world war two's

00:24:23.440 version of gorp core is really different looking and the rest of the world is kind of like what

00:24:29.100 are you doing? We went on a real fashion limb in the name of democracy. We were like,

00:24:36.680 we think this looks best for our soldier. And we really tested it out. It's kind of this amazing

00:24:42.320 moment. And it was this little moment of patriotism. I was like, that's so cool. It's

00:24:46.560 kind of like the sartorial embodiment of our principles. It's like, we've really looked at

00:24:51.480 what the soldiers want as much as I could be like, hooray, soldiers. Also, only a very small

00:24:56.800 handful of wars that like i think actually sort of patriotism right like exactly yeah but it was

00:25:03.720 this moment where we were like really designing from first principles and this is the moment

00:25:08.540 where we recruit a lot of outdoorsmen and a lot of designers from like brooks brothers on the

00:25:14.080 and the clothing industry and a lot of those designers look at these really novel jackets

00:25:21.320 and they're like that's a cool idea and they immediately are like we made versions of these

00:25:25.820 because this is really cool and it like spread from that moment on as soon as soon as they were

00:25:34.480 in the military they were in the civilian world like versions of those clothes have always had

00:25:39.300 their little like parallels and there's always been this sort of mutual admiration between the

00:25:47.680 civilian world and the military world because designers from the civilian world in part helped

00:25:52.560 create that. Like the military kind of look to the civilian world for design principles. And they

00:25:57.300 also look to the outdoor industry for that. So this is the other thing. It's sort of like

00:26:00.400 historically enmeshed that we've always been like, that's cool. And so what I'm getting to here

00:26:09.220 is that now in the modern era, and this is the weird thing, we have elite soldiers, like very

00:26:18.500 elite special operators like uh delta force and seal team six and these very fancy special

00:26:26.540 operators who are um kind of becoming influencers in this way that they historically were not

00:26:36.560 allowed to um special forces used to be like a secret yeah and they have taken the the roots of

00:26:46.540 this sort of love affair between the american public and the military and their mutual style

00:26:54.980 admiration to its like logical apex where these guys who really have almost well they have very

00:27:02.340 little regulation on what they wear they're like allowed to have beards they're allowed to have

00:27:05.420 tattoos they're like these badass guys whatever kicking ass um they often wear a lot of gear

00:27:14.220 from the outdoor industry. And a lot of that gear is sort of the really nice expensive stuff,

00:27:20.440 like the really high end, like the tactical gear made by Arc'teryx or Outdoor Research or Patagonia.

00:27:27.520 And their tactical line tends to be in like darker, more muted colors. You know,

00:27:32.760 the military Salomons are lighter. They're in black. They're matte. They're very sleek.

00:27:37.780 That's why the late Virgil Abloh wore Arc'teryx Leaf to New York Fashion Week in 2020.

00:27:42.120 or a friend of mine worked at a really high-end boutique in Soho and he was like we wouldn't buy

00:27:49.880 Canada Goose jackets but we'd buy the tactical Canada Goose jackets because they were just like

00:27:55.380 sleeker and so there's and this has been since the war on terror that there's been this new sort

00:28:01.580 of wave of sleek special operator high-end military clothes and I think this is secretly

00:28:10.180 so that's why I say it's a dark horse like even though we've had this like long running

00:28:14.100 old school fascination with it this is the next level facet and I think a lot of people don't

00:28:20.300 see that in their everyday lives but it's happening in these higher levels of fashion

00:28:23.740 that's trickling down like the cerulean sweater you know what I mean totally like you see

00:28:28.280 influencers in this like cool looking jacket and you're like what's that it's like well that's

00:28:33.960 yeah they got that coming from there fascinating okay so are there's also so much 0.98

00:28:39.840 masculinities to shit going on with this. So I think our next question will tee us up to talk 0.97

00:28:44.200 about that. It comes from Anne. I'd love to get thoughts on gear as it pertains to skill level

00:28:48.640 and external judgment, basically the culture of gear itself. For example, if your stuff is too

00:28:53.740 nice and new and your skill level isn't on par with your gear, you're a poser. If all of your

00:28:58.320 stuff is too new, you're trying too hard. If all of your stuff is too old, you're a schlub, etc. 0.89

00:29:02.860 I love hiking and once got a new pair of hiking boots. I was teased by strangers on the trail

00:29:06.980 for months about the boots looking too new. But boots aren't created with patina. Moreover,

00:29:11.960 everyone's boots are new at some point, and everyone is a beginner at some point.

00:29:15.280 Is this snobbishness a symptom of the competitive drive in many athletes, and having the quote

00:29:19.120 right performance gear is part of telegraphing the performance itself? Or are people just

00:29:23.760 especially assholes where I live? So the reason I wanted to talk about this is because there's 1.00

00:29:28.840 a specific part of the first episode where you talk a little bit about how during times of

00:29:35.300 relative peace when most people did not understand the united states as being at war and there wasn't

00:29:42.340 you know widespread conscription all that sort of thing the uniforms got bigger more bombastic

00:29:47.900 it's like a bird that needs to like show more of its plumage that's such a good metaphor and

00:29:55.040 and then also this made me think of the the way during the same period of time like 1900s rich

00:30:02.280 people going west either to be 49ers like to like look for gold but also just to like be dudes and

00:30:11.620 so the dude and i worked at a dude ranch like they're what they are is easterners who come with

00:30:18.120 fancy clothes that they've never worn before that they have purchased specifically for this occasion

00:30:22.940 and they have been outfitted but don't know how to do the activity and i think like there's this

00:30:29.960 descendant of both of those things that we see with brand new gear and also i think it's part

00:30:37.160 of this larger conversation too about like anyone who's obviously a quote-unquote weekend warrior

00:30:42.820 which is a term within the outdoor community for someone who like has a real job and then

00:30:49.600 goes and does the thing on the weekends and how that's like not not actually as legit as someone

00:30:55.220 who's like a dirtbag climber and just like climbs all the time and just lives in their van right

00:31:00.600 like there is so many distinctions in terms of like who is actually doing the thing and it also

00:31:07.460 reminds me in a different way of how the military you actually everything has to be like you have to

00:31:13.120 be fastidious everything should look as new as possible like there are these incredible grooming

00:31:18.820 standards and so how does that strain of masculinity and like grooming standards intersect with like

00:31:25.000 if you are a non-military outdoors person, 0.98

00:31:28.820 everything should look like shit, but still work. 0.98

00:31:34.220 Yes, yes. 0.97

00:31:35.020 Sorry.

00:31:35.640 No, no, no.

00:31:36.220 You've made so many good points.

00:31:37.880 And the other thing that I want to say,

00:31:39.720 this didn't make it into the series,

00:31:41.360 but I'm so happy you brought up dude,

00:31:43.700 because this was a huge thing in the Indian Wars, too.

00:31:48.680 Yeah.

00:31:49.600 You know, college-educated men were dudes

00:31:53.060 who like went to seek their manhood like teddy roosevelt teddy roosevelt was a dude he was the

00:31:59.340 ultimate dude and it was part of like his his victory of becoming a respected rugged guy 0.97

00:32:10.780 was a victory for all dudes like he walked so george w bush could fly like john jr fucking 0.71

00:32:19.120 Yeah, totally. 0.66

00:32:21.800 He paved the way for like the American dude.

00:32:25.820 But it's and like took, you know, I think it also like what you're talking about also really speaks to the military civilian divide as well.

00:32:35.600 Like ever since we got rid of the draft, which everybody ultimately wanted, not just the anti-war movement, but a lot of conservatives wanted to get rid of the draft as well.

00:32:43.540 Part of it was this idea that we had to have committed soldiers who were just like wanted to stay a long time and wanted to do everything and wanted to commit 100% and not have a wider representation of Americans in the military who kind of were like, maybe not so excited about going to war.

00:33:04.560 Maybe we're not so neat. Maybe we're trying to start underground presses in the military. Maybe we're trying to start unionization efforts.

00:33:13.540 Maybe we're like, actually, you know, the military was starting to look a lot like America.

00:33:19.440 It was starting to introduce that messiness.

00:33:22.200 And so there ends up being these rigid boundaries between like, are you in?

00:33:26.280 Are you out?

00:33:26.760 Are you a mountain?

00:33:27.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:28.680 And I also think a lot of it has to do with the way that we've separated nature.

00:33:32.200 Like it becomes Teddy Roosevelt's idea.

00:33:33.820 Like after he becomes, after he rehabilitated, after he's like, I went west and I fixed it.

00:33:39.860 Like I was this wimpy, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was born in New York City. 0.94

00:33:43.540 super rich very weak asthmatic with a high voice uh in the lap of luxury and then he like went west 0.86

00:33:52.980 and you know during the indian wars and rehabilitated himself and he went to cuba and 0.92

00:33:57.760 he fought with the rough riders and he came back and he was like i'm a man now and then in his

00:34:02.120 presidency and you know i spent a lot of time in episode one establishing like who's teddy roosevelt

00:34:06.500 and the listener might be like why and the answer is because he shaped a lot of our attitudes towards

00:34:12.000 the outdoors in his presidency he becomes the conservationist president he basically builds

00:34:17.660 the building blocks for our national park system which don't get me wrong i adore i love the national

00:34:22.600 park system i think it's a great idea and at the same time it did create this idea that nature is

00:34:31.160 something that you like go out to it's over there like people used to live there people used to live

00:34:37.280 all over there before all those Indian wars that Teddy Roosevelt loved so much. And he sort of like

00:34:42.860 created this vitrine around nature that he's like, let's rope it off. He had this great line when he

00:34:49.860 was defending the preservation of the Grand Canyon to Congress. And it's a beautiful speech. Again,

00:34:56.380 I'm so glad he preserved the Grand Canyon. Both things can be true. But he said, you know,

00:35:03.700 it's a natural wonder and man can only mar it and this idea that man is only going to fuck up nature

00:35:09.980 and we have to keep man away from nature this is his mindset and in the way he set up the national

00:35:16.800 park system has kind of translated it to all of us that we're supposed to just sort of look at it

00:35:21.980 walk through it in the prescribed paths and then like go home and it created this very rigid line

00:35:27.420 between like nature is something you go out to it's not something you like live in and then it's

00:35:32.300 really hard to gather the experience to get enough mud on your shoes in your day-to-day life

00:35:37.760 to to really feel like you live in it i i mean i don't know the answer to the question i don't

00:35:43.020 know how you're supposed to like not but i think i mean at the heart of ann's question is like

00:35:49.620 why do people police me in this way and it's like all of this shit right because people are trying 0.97

00:35:55.640 to say you should be you shouldn't treat the outdoors that way that's a fucked up way to do 0.99

00:36:00.640 And, you know, we don't know where Anne's from. I would say if she's from the West, there actually is a lot more of this compulsion to, like, you should be outdoors every day. And it makes me think, too, of, like, in Idaho, there are no national parks. That's because the entire state is beautiful. Like, okay, the entire northern and middle part of the state is beautiful enough to be a national park. 0.94

00:36:20.880 And so like, they don't need the designation in order for it to be like this gorgeous wilderness area. And people just, it's very normalized that you go out into the woods, and you don't need fancy shit. And you don't need, like, specific gear, or maybe you have the gear that you've had for many, many years. But it's like a very, like, just this is what we do. And also, we do what we want, don't tell us what to do. 0.97

00:36:46.960 Right. So like I can snowmobile there, but I can also hike like you can do all the things you can hike like you can shoot things there.

00:36:54.460 You can climb there and everyone should be able to do it.

00:36:57.280 And that's really at the heart of like a lot of the the politics of those places is like there should be freedom to use the woods as you want.

00:37:08.320 That said, I can't believe that many people comment on her clothes.

00:37:12.920 I didn't realize that was such a part of the culture.

00:37:14.920 I think it's razzing. And I think also it's oftentimes done by like 60 year old men who see a younger woman who's wearing new hiking boots and feel like they should say something dad like to them. So that's also part of what's going on here.

00:37:31.880 How helpful. How helpful of them. That's so nice.

00:37:36.500 Okay, so this next question, I think this will help us get to some of the specifics. It comes from Christina. And it's about where some of this fetishization started.

00:37:44.920 As a kid in the late 80s, early 90s, born in 86, I remember hiking in jeans and cotton

00:37:50.960 t-shirts, though my parents always made sure we had good quality hiking boots.

00:37:55.200 When did this change to the split we see today between performance wear and aesthetic slash

00:38:00.280 fashion wear such as HikerKind and Salomon being cool?

00:38:04.180 Yeah, so where do you see like the performance fabric-ization of it all happening?

00:38:10.100 Yeah, I actually talked to a designer who was working at a lot of major performance brands.

00:38:15.460 She was working at like Columbia and Nike and she was a head designer.

00:38:19.220 She was very high up and she was like, oh, this was a very active thing we made in the 90s.

00:38:23.980 Yeah.

00:38:24.220 You know, to move people away from cotton into polyester and into aesthetics and rebrand them as performance fabrics.

00:38:37.460 And was it because it's cheaper?

00:38:39.360 Well, there is one way to look at it that's a little like mwahaha, like devious. But there's actually a more charitable answer that's kind of cool. It's because clothes are being made for women's bodies kind of for the first time. When you think about it, the sports bra was only invented in the 70s. It was still being prototyped in the late 80s. That's insane.

00:39:08.180 When I studied abroad in France in 2002, there were no women had sports bras. Like that's how, that's how new it felt. 0.89

00:39:16.600 It's so recent. It is so recent. Like I was talking to the woman who designed the sports bra. She's around. She's not that old actually. Dr. LaJean Lawson. She sewed two jock straps together for a prototype for a sports bra. She was still working on it like into the 90s.

00:39:34.580 Yeah. And it was this idea. And again, this is like kind of before everyone was like, oh, no, synthetics. But everyone was really excited about the idea that, oh, my God, now we can sort of make clothes for women now.

00:39:50.040 And so it was this idea of contouring that was very exciting.

00:39:55.660 And so clothes were form-fitting.

00:39:58.560 And this was the precursor to shapewear.

00:40:03.380 And it was kind of the early origins of athleisure.

00:40:06.040 So it really started in the outdoor industry and the athletic industry and then bled out into fashion.

00:40:13.700 Because we're talking about like leggings, right?

00:40:15.720 like and stuff that was more form-fed in less like the camp shirt technical fabric thing that like

00:40:22.100 yeah like stretchy tight stuff and this was the first time it was happening because shapewear i

00:40:28.100 always think of the antecedent to shapewear as the girdle oh not necessarily like shape not

00:40:33.680 shapewear per se not like things you'd wear under like a fancy dress but i'm saying like a like a

00:40:39.380 sports bra and leggings like this is the first time you start seeing like instead of wearing your

00:40:43.660 big cotton shirt you're wearing like oh we can like make it tight now we can make like a contoured

00:40:50.720 workout shirt yeah you know yeah and so this paves the way for the athleisure boom that's

00:40:57.760 gonna happen yeah in the 2000s I mean I'm even thinking about you know what like was made famous

00:41:03.940 as like aerobics wear like Jane Fonda style aerobics wear from the 80s if you didn't wear

00:41:09.720 any of those clothes or haven't like touched them or have like in your mom's closet or something

00:41:14.240 like that they are not the same as our spandex clothes like basically they were wearing swimsuits

00:41:20.060 over cotton leggings that would sag after one wear yes yes yes very different very very very

00:41:27.680 very very very different like there's a reason they had stirrups on the bottom

00:41:31.520 yes yes exactly came from writing right like is that right the reason like to keep

00:41:39.500 riding pants tucked into your boots they had stirrups on the bottom I can only imagine I think

00:41:44.480 so I can't say with certainty no you should next season horse clothes I mean you could do a whole

00:41:52.580 there's so much on athleisure but it's also very related to this but no so that's the thing like I

00:41:57.380 feel like I in the beginning it was like yeah it was it was really cool it was like a very cool and

00:42:02.880 exciting revolution in the beginning like the move away from cotton was was very cool yeah okay this

00:42:09.040 next question, though, I think gets to some limitations that are still very much in the

00:42:13.280 space. This comes from Kaylee. Why is it so difficult to find plus-sized outdoor gear,

00:42:18.860 specifically hiking pants? It's gotten better in recent years, but the choices are still so

00:42:23.760 limited in comparison to straight sizes, especially when the average American woman

00:42:28.160 is roughly a size 16 or 18. So I thought of this when you were talking in the first episode about

00:42:35.280 how the military was really responsible for the first like sizing of small medium large

00:42:42.140 so i wonder if that is a good starting point for this yeah well so yeah the military is kind of uh

00:42:49.780 one of the first places where we saw mass manufacturing for the first time because

00:42:54.680 it was the first time we had to like clothe a bunch of people really quickly yeah yeah the way

00:42:58.620 sizing works in general not just in the military but the way companies will do sizing

00:43:05.000 is they will choose what they think is a medium they will fit that medium on a real person and

00:43:12.680 the medium is usually like a size eight and they will fit that size eight on a real person

00:43:17.620 and then they will use modeling and math to imagine basically what the sizes smaller and larger

00:43:28.720 will be but the thing is bodies don't work that way bodies don't work that way because you don't

00:43:35.740 just get bigger like you don't just grow and you don't just go smaller either and you don't just

00:43:41.080 go smaller ways well it does work to a point it actually works quite well to a point but after

00:43:46.220 like a you know like a size 14 then it's like you need another you need another model yeah you need

00:43:54.260 other model you have to like just do it again basically it's it's actually not that hard you

00:43:59.180 just have to like add another model and do do the system again yeah that's basically what it takes

00:44:03.980 um because the way we grow is distributed unequally as bodies get bigger um but a lot

00:44:11.960 of companies don't want to add the second model and they don't want to basically do the math and

00:44:20.820 the interesting thing I mean the sad thing really is that a lot of pattern makers can't

00:44:27.600 do the math like a lot of in fashion school plus size fashion is not something that is taught and

00:44:36.160 it's not something that is cared about because it's a self-perpetuating cycle where people who

00:44:42.100 wear plus sizes have horrible experiences with fashion so they don't love fashion so they don't

00:44:46.520 go to fashion school yeah and fashion is for thin people so thin people go to fashion school and

00:44:51.900 they only care about thin people it's like this echo chamber yeah it's very hard to get thin

00:44:57.260 designers to consider like oh we should make we should add another designer so the interesting

00:45:03.620 thing about this is when the outdoor industry is really aware of this and they're taking actually

00:45:09.380 an entirely different model. I went to REI's headquarters in Seattle, and they had a room

00:45:18.220 full of entirely different shaped mannequins, like wildly different heights, different hips,

00:45:25.860 different waists. I mean, many, many, many different bodies, maybe like 40. And so they're

00:45:34.040 working on a model that they're calling inclusive sizing, where it's just kind of like

00:45:38.200 we're doing a bunch of different fits on a bunch of different people.

00:45:42.840 They have gender neutral sizing, which they just call adult.

00:45:45.820 They have like men's, women's and adult.

00:45:48.300 They recently last year re launched their sleeping bags.

00:45:55.360 Their sleeping bags used to be in four sizes.

00:45:57.260 Now they're in nine.

00:45:58.600 So they're very aware of it.

00:46:00.200 But again, this was only last year.

00:46:01.520 Like it's very, very, very recent.

00:46:04.640 so the long story short is like it's math and it's time it's not difficult but like they do

00:46:13.560 have to make the effort and so some companies want to and some don't yeah yeah and that's for

00:46:19.280 their REI brand which like is priced at a level that I think is so much more accessible to like

00:46:24.360 most people and is also really high quality stuff for what it's worth totally

00:46:28.500 the culture study podcast is sponsored by honey love melody what are you wearing right now

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00:50:32.880 for up to 40% off. Okay, this next one is about one of my favorite things. I like when we look

00:50:49.780 back on like, I don't know, 1998 to 2028, I feel like this is going to be an artifact that we

00:50:57.840 return to again and again. Let's hear this question from Moira. What's the deal with the

00:51:03.120 tech bro vest? At my East Coast tech job, I once wore a Patagonia vest and got jokingly labeled a

00:51:09.140 sellout. How did this piece of legitimate outdoor gear become such loaded Silicon Valley symbolism?

00:51:15.620 And is there a way for those of us who like vests for non-performative reasons to wear them without

00:51:20.620 irony or should i just accept that i'm cosplaying as a vc okay so the first thing that i think of

00:51:28.380 is the fact that like there's so there have been all of these different points in history where

00:51:33.840 people have anxiety about like the demasculization of the workforce in some way and now it's like

00:51:40.860 about coders and like there's a reason why like mark zuckerberg is getting jacked and wearing

00:51:47.460 you know military gear like that he looks like he could be special ops now and like so into mma right

00:51:53.420 so maybe we can use that to think about what's going on with the tech pro vest

00:51:57.680 oh yeah oh my god i mean i have a lot of guesses i can't say for sure and i feel like with half

00:52:08.300 half the time with these trends it's like part psychology and usually like something happened

00:52:13.500 you know like usually it's like yeah there was a retreat one time at twitter and they all got

00:52:20.520 free patagonia sweater you know like usually like something happened so i don't know what was the

00:52:27.240 thing that happened maybe i should look into that but no that would be really interesting because i

00:52:31.520 do think you're right that there's probably a watershed moment and it was something way cooler

00:52:35.380 than twitter like way more like exclusive but i do think like we have to think about the fact that

00:52:41.060 it's like the tech industry is centered primarily in the west coast where like your version of

00:52:47.060 dressing up is oftentimes wearing your nice fleece like yeah like so what does that look like if

00:52:54.620 you're not doing like and that trickled to east coast finance stuff but it started with the vcs

00:53:01.660 and with with tech bros and like also just like that they worked like a lot of them do do stuff

00:53:09.340 in the office and then they do weekend warrior a little bit yeah it certainly has to do with a lot

00:53:16.020 of the like whatever san francisco ethos but i think it also largely plays into this broader

00:53:22.400 trend of whatever call it quiet luxury stealth wealth whatever you want to call it and i just

00:53:32.900 finished my friend's amazing book, which Anne, I think you and your readers would adore. It's

00:53:39.700 coming out soon. It's called The Second Estate by Ray Madoff. It's so great. It's about the tax code

00:53:46.920 and it's about how the tax code has, the estate tax has changed over time and how the way we

00:53:54.720 perceive wealth is completely based around it. And it's funny, she talks about the aesthetics

00:53:59.880 of wealth and how they changed with the tax code and how in the gilded age you know there was so

00:54:06.520 much for lack of a better word plumage like rich people yeah yeah yeah seen the gilded age people 0.94

00:54:12.040 look people used to look really wealthy they used to wear fucking tiaras they used to be like i'm a 0.84

00:54:18.100 little king and we kind of we being americans were sort of like uh rich people but also like 0.96

00:54:26.080 sort of loved it yeah in an era where the tax system was a bit more regulated especially on

00:54:37.840 rich people and this is the thing in the era where the tax system and and it's actually overtly

00:54:45.140 connected to ray has a theory that it's connected to the idea of the draft that when the draft was

00:54:53.340 active that so many wealthy people were able to avoid it or you know this was considered doing

00:55:01.540 their part is like listen you have to really like chip in we're all chipping in here it's wartime

00:55:06.160 and that after the draft it was like taxes were sort of like not a marquee issue anymore it was

00:55:14.760 not considered as important to like pay penance and so yeah she has this theory that this is part

00:55:22.340 of where this stealth wealth comes from is like just don't don't look at me like don't look at

00:55:26.940 the fact that I actually do not contribute to this country right right financially whatever

00:55:33.900 like I I on paper earn a penny or whatever a dollar a year that's what Mark Zuckerberg earns

00:55:40.800 like don't look at me you know that's so interesting it also there's so many parallels

00:55:46.700 with like how stars in the 1920s versus the 1950s performed their wealth like basically they

00:55:52.960 over performed being wealthy in the 1920s right and then there was this incredible pullback to be

00:55:59.300 like no we're just like you yeah like yeah and they actually were taxed like so so heavily in

00:56:06.280 the like for a long period of time until a lot of things changed starting in the 50s and the way

00:56:11.240 that they self-incorporated and like started making movies outside of the star system but

00:56:15.460 But like just that idea that we have to like, how do we make people, how do we distract people from the fact that you as a middle class person pay a lot more taxes than I do as a wealthy person is really interesting.

00:56:28.560 Yeah, exactly.

00:56:29.740 Stealth wealth, like you said.

00:56:31.160 Exactly. 0.74

00:56:31.560 And, you know, yeah, she has this idea that like the working rich actually pay the most.

00:56:36.580 And if you wear a Patagonia vest, it makes you look upper middle class when you probably aren't.

00:56:42.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:43.120 It's like from the preppy handbook is wearing like outdoor gear, which is like an upper

00:56:47.580 middle class thing to do.

00:56:49.100 Totally. 0.75

00:56:50.080 Okay, last question.

00:56:51.080 This gets into kind of some nitty gritty stuff with purchasing, consumption, all of these

00:56:57.040 sorts of things that I'm so curious to hear your thoughts about.

00:57:00.380 This comes from Chloe.

00:57:01.660 It seems that every space, every corner that capitalism and overconsumption can wedge itself

00:57:06.680 into, it does.

00:57:08.300 Even the environment isn't sacred enough.

00:57:10.860 The clothes, the marketing slogans, the synthetics everywhere,

00:57:14.920 the backpacks with an unreasonable amount of straps, all of it screams waste.

00:57:19.340 On top of that, we're sold the moral purity of being a mountain person

00:57:23.280 or someone who only vacations in national parks,

00:57:26.480 even as they drive their gas Subarus to the parking lots

00:57:29.820 carved into the very mountains they've made their personality.

00:57:33.480 How do we get here? And how do we stop ourselves from participating?

00:57:37.360 How do I stop buying extreme gear I don't need?

00:57:40.220 so I'm gonna start by talking about my truck which I bought as the last gas car that I will

00:57:47.280 ever buy in my life like very purposely bought a Toyota Tacoma because I that's so cool you know

00:57:52.500 it'll drive into like it's a really cool car and I'm gonna drive it for like 400,000 miles like

00:57:58.180 I'm gonna own it forever but when we bought it 2022 there were not you know this is still during

00:58:04.900 like post-pandemic car shortages all they had available was the truck that also has a setting

00:58:13.040 that you can turn on to go over boulder fields i love it so i am so out trucked like i wanted a

00:58:22.320 four-wheel drive truck with a bed but i didn't need it to go for boulder fields and i think a

00:58:29.040 lot of people find themselves in situations where they're like oh i need a hiking backpack and

00:58:33.280 they're like I have a hiking backpack that also has a strap for an ice axe you know and I have

00:58:39.120 used the ice axe strap brag but like awesome it's a very like you know it's just like everything is

00:58:47.060 over equipped how are you thinking about this in terms of like the military crossover like how

00:58:54.260 stuff is made for to appeal to like an idealized version of our outdoor selves almost well again

00:59:00.780 it is this idea that like nothing is new you know the outdoor industry was arguably invented by

00:59:06.540 guidebook authors in the 1860s and they also preach this idea that like don't buy anything

00:59:12.000 like go outdoors and use woodcraft and they were completely hypocritical they totally bought stuff

00:59:18.380 because we again white americans did not know how to make things they did not know how to live here 0.82

00:59:24.380 they bought stuff yeah americans have always bought stuff and i say this to say not to shame

00:59:31.840 anyone it's just the way it's well maybe the early colonizers maybe to shame them but not

00:59:37.660 not anyone who has had no choice it's just it's been this way it's just who hasn't like woven

00:59:45.540 their own like outdoor it's very hard to do it's extremely hard to do um so yeah i you know the

00:59:58.740 interesting thing about it and the idea of the outdoor industry which first of all is massive

01:00:05.500 It just exceeded a trillion dollars.

01:00:07.920 It's a 1.2 trillion dollar industry. 0.96

01:00:13.300 And the fascinating thing about capitalism is this means, it's so fucked up, but it's fascinating that it now means that, like, this gives the earth, like, a stake. 0.94

01:00:34.040 You know what I mean? 0.96

01:00:35.500 It's like worth something now in this way that it hasn't been in other places.

01:00:42.160 Like I talked to representatives of the Michigan outdoor industry, which is this new branch of their it's like a new lobbying firm that they're like, we are campaigning for environmental preservation basically on behalf of this.

01:01:02.220 it's like a business interest now that's invested basically if we don't have the outdoors then the

01:01:07.680 outdoor then we lose this industry yeah yeah so that's the thing it's like full circle sort of

01:01:12.400 fucked up but like kind of okay great it's very weird but it's also a cross purposes if people

01:01:21.160 aren't if they're continually buying new items that create more waste which like and i see these 0.74

01:01:28.200 campaigns from patagonia i think it's the most the one that most people are familiar with about

01:01:33.540 basically like wear your thing into the ground yeah like we want to make something not only that

01:01:38.920 lasts but also when it starts to break down we want to help you repair it which seems antithetical

01:01:44.740 to capitalism and i know that like it's part of patagonia's brand image and like that there are

01:01:49.960 benefits to believing this but it also like it is different than i think a lot of different places

01:01:54.920 well it is and then you know the other tricky thing is patagonia is a military contractor and

01:02:01.240 they are one of the companies that really tries to hide it they're like no no no we don't do that

01:02:05.560 anymore and i went to this costume shed in la that supplies a lot of costumes for war movies

01:02:11.920 and police procedurals because it seemed like the closest i could come to like seeing a bunch of the

01:02:16.400 stuff and i was like do you have any patagonia stuff and they're like oh yeah tons of it and

01:02:19.980 it just says Patagonia on the inside.

01:02:22.040 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:22.700 It's Patagonia.

01:02:23.560 And at the end of the day, I mean, the military is the largest single institutional polluter

01:02:31.440 in the world.

01:02:32.660 It pollutes more than the entire nations of Denmark and Portugal.

01:02:37.600 Wow.

01:02:37.880 So while I do laud these efforts, it's like, I don't know.

01:02:44.540 These things are so complicated.

01:02:46.580 And then the other thing is, while I do love that they're offering to do repairs, I don't think owning things for a long time is the answer. I think the other answer is like, we should be making things out of like mushrooms and spider silk and things that break down. And on the other hand, the outdoor industry is without a doubt, 10 times more active about their carbon footprint than the fashion industry.

01:03:12.420 a hundred percent like I went to this trade show about performance fabrics and everyone was just

01:03:20.060 like obsessed with sustainability in this really serious way so that's the other thing like as

01:03:26.200 clothing goes the outdoor industry is just like laser focused on it in this amazing way but their

01:03:33.400 connection to the military is complicated and the military um doesn't really care about the

01:03:40.860 environmental impact because they're like we don't want clothes to break down because people's lives

01:03:45.000 depend on us right and that's the other thing once i meet these soldiers he's like incredible people

01:03:49.040 who jump from planes and speak five languages i'm like yeah i don't want them to get killed either

01:03:52.560 so it's really like i don't know i just walked away from this series being like i don't know man

01:03:58.480 i really don't know i feel so weird right and like the reason why so this we glossed over this point

01:04:05.300 earlier but like the reason why so many of these outdoor companies are still american companies

01:04:11.580 producing things in america is because of these contracts with the military because the military

01:04:15.720 has to contract to american companies exactly exactly and then like so you know the hiker kind

01:04:23.040 was mentioned earlier i talked to them and they were like you know they started their business in

01:04:27.700 the pandemic they were like we only were able you know there were so many supply chain issues in the

01:04:32.040 pandemic, they were like, we were only able to start because of domestic factories. Why are

01:04:35.360 there domestic factories? The military. They don't even contract for the military, but they

01:04:38.580 wouldn't be around without the military. Right, right, right, right. Like, it's inextricable.

01:04:43.080 It's crazy. But it also, I think, points to larger points that are made from so many different

01:04:49.800 disciplines about how central the military industrial complex really is to so many corners

01:04:55.900 of American life but also how that is oftentimes alighted and I'm sometimes I'm like why are we

01:05:03.920 doing this like why why is Patagonia trying to hide this yeah and I think part of it is shame

01:05:09.180 about the larger American imperial project or complicated feelings about it and especially

01:05:15.840 since like our current source of soldiers is oftentimes people who are desperate for an

01:05:20.840 education or for citizenship or for some sort of stability because of how precarious we've made

01:05:26.500 American life like it is just so all of it is so complicated 100 and that's the other thing is like

01:05:32.280 I actually don't think it needs to be complicated I don't think it's anything Patagonia should be

01:05:36.120 ashamed of and the other thing the thing I like the most about clothes is that it's so close to

01:05:41.640 the body I think it's fine for people to be warm I think it's fine for people to be dry they're not

01:05:47.080 making guns you know I have no problem I really don't and like you know all that air all that

01:05:53.760 pollution that the military makes it's not from jackets you know it's like jet fuel it's horrible

01:06:00.580 like I have way bigger problems with the system you know like it's not and that's the thing I

01:06:08.100 think it's so easy to focus on especially because it's something within our control people are like

01:06:13.800 should i stop buying at these companies i'm like no i think yeah yeah yeah like no that's the thing

01:06:18.620 that's the thing is it feels like it's an actionable thing because it is something that

01:06:22.340 we are personally consuming exactly but it's that's not the root cause exactly and if nothing

01:06:28.680 else i'm like no i think it's cool i like my whole point is i think we're a lot more in common than

01:06:33.740 we think a lot of soldiers think exactly like you and me they're they would have they would jump in

01:06:39.580 on this conversation and be like it is fucked up man like they like we're really not that different 0.87

01:06:44.660 you know and or some of us are again the military and civilians we come in all different forms 0.97

01:06:51.580 i don't think it's wrong for us all to have good jackets um i think that's fine

01:06:59.040 it's a good place for us to end uh if people want to hear more from you where can they find you

01:07:05.520 and the show on the internet.

01:07:07.200 You can find Articles of Interest

01:07:08.540 wherever you get your podcasts.

01:07:10.120 And of course, I have a Substack.

01:07:11.920 It's articlesofinterest.substack.com.

01:07:14.340 Thank you so much.

01:07:16.000 Thanks to your listeners for their amazing questions.

01:07:18.520 Those were so thought-provoking.

01:07:19.740 I was like, I should have put some of those into the series.

01:07:27.360 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

01:07:29.700 Today, paid subscribers got an Ask in Anything segment

01:07:32.560 where Melody joined me to talk about investing 0.61

01:07:35.220 in good clothes when your body size keeps changing. We go to many different places,

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01:07:55.920 Subscribe to the Culture Study Podcast wherever you listen, because we have so many great episodes

01:08:00.440 in the works, and I promise you don't want to miss any of them. And if you want to suggest a

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01:08:34.580 You

Culture Study Podcast - October 22, 2025

The Outdoor Gearification of the American Wardrobe

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