Article by Tuscun
Born in 1899, Eddie Bauer, first put his outdoor passion in practice in 1920, when he opened “Eddie Bauer’s Tennis Shop” in downtown Seattle, offering tennis rackets and accessories during the tennis season. Later, he expanded his area of interest to include handmade golf clubs and fishing equipment.
After developing hypothermia in 1940, he worked on developing the first quilled goose down insulated jacket in the United States, “The Skyliner” which met great popularity. Between 1934 and 1937, Eddie Bauer registered over 20 patents on sporting equipment and outdoor clothing.
This experience became useful in 1942, when the United States Army Air Corps commissioned him to produce a flight parka for its pilots. Through skillful negotiation, Eddie Bauer was the only supplier allowed to put his logo on the equipment he delivered to the army. He supplied the army with a large range of products, like parkas, sleeping bags, pants and backpacks.
Its collaboration with the army greatly helped him after the war, when in 1945 he launched his first mail-order catalog, having more than 14.000 soldiers on his mailing list.
The amount of work put in, rapidly overwhelmed Bauer and in 1950 he decide to form a fifty-fifty partnership with William F. Niemi, reorganizing the store and putting a greater emphasis on the mail-order catalog.
In the 60′s, after taking his sons along in the business, Eddie Bauer increased the popularity of the trademark by supplying equipment for the American K2 Himalayan Expeditions and various other expeditions.
In 1968 Eddie Bauer retired and sold his half to Niemi for .5 million. The new ownership opened the first store outside Seattle and marked the start for the expansion of Eddie Bauer products around the world.
Niemi sold the company in 1971 to General Mills, who changed the company’s focus towards more casual lifestyle apparel, and started a partnership with Ford.
Later on, Spiegel purchased the company and aggressively expanded it, from 60 to 99 stores in the first year, the number growing to over 300 until 1998.
A large number of events were sponsored by the company, improving it’s popularity and leading to a huge expansions with over 550 stores in North America only, beside other 32 in Japan and 9 more in Germany.
Because Eddie Bauer products are not the cheapest on the market due to their high quality, there is always a good idea to search for Eddie Bauer Coupons on the internet. This is a great way to buy your favorite brand at lower prices.
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