Lamenting the loss of “the genuine article”

Willis & Geiger is one of those revered brands that sits at the crossroads of expedition history, safari culture, and classic American outfitting. They were the premier American expedition outfitter from 1902 to 1999, supplying explorers, aviators, and safari hunters with some of the finest gear ever made.

Regrettably, they are now defunct. The value of remembering the brand here is to keep the flame alive. The history of its downfall will surely serve as lessons learned for some entrepreneur bold and perhaps crazy enough to pick up the torch and craft products with as much soul as cloth.

Many of you are too young to have ever set eyes on a piece of their kit or even heard of this fine adventure outfitter. But if you owned a shirt, jacket, or any of their leather goods you would say, “it’s the real thing.” Step aside Coca Cola.

Founded in 1902 by Arctic explorer Ben Willis, he later partnered with marketer Howard W. Geiger in 1928 to form the legendary company. Willis & Geiger wasn’t a safari company in the African sense — they were an expedition outfitter, and arguably the most important one America ever produced.

They outfitted some of the most famous explorers and adventurers of the 20th century, including:

·        Roald Amundsen

·        Charles Lindbergh

·        Amelia Earhart

·        Sir Edmund Hillary

·        Jim Fowler

·        The Flying Tigers

·        Ernest Hemingway, who even designed his own bush jacket for them in 1936

This puts them squarely in the same cultural universe as Abercrombie & Fitch, Filson, and later, Hunting World — but with deeper roots.

They specialized in making:

·        expedition clothing

·        safari jackets

·        bush shirts

·        flight jackets

·        cold‑weather gear

·        military contract garments, such as G‑1 flight jackets under U.S. Navy contract in the 1930s and WWII, and one of the first electrically heated flying suits.

Their gear was used on polar expeditions, Himalayan climbs, African safaris, and early aviation feats. They supplied clothing to Teddy Roosevelt for his African safari (via Abercrombie & Fitch) and became the default clothing supplier for American hunters traveling to Africa in the mid‑20th century.

If you were an American heading to Kenya or Tanganyika in the 1950s–60s, odds were good you were wearing their bush jacket, safari shirt, and one of their expedition vests. They crafted the uniform of safari’s golden age.

Their corporate history is a roller coaster:

·        1977 — Abercrombie & Fitch goes bankrupt; Willis & Geiger, its largest unpaid creditor, collapses with it

·        Late 1970s — revived by Burt Avedon

·        1986 — sold to VF Corporation

·        1987 — sold to Laura Ashley

·        1990s — sold to Japanese company D’URBAN

·        1994 — sold to Lands’ End

·        1999 — Lands’ End shuts the brand down

By the end, the brand had been bought and sold so many times that its identity was diluted — but the heritage remained legendary.

Lands’ End and Willis & Geiger were almost philosophical opposites, and anyone who lived through the era could see the mismatch coming a mile away.

In the years watching Willis & Geiger operate in their rarefied space — the people who bought their gear weren’t casual catalog shoppers. They were pilots, hunters, travelers, photographers, field biologists, and the kind of folks who knew exactly why a bush poplin shirt needed triple‑stitched seams. That clientele was discerning because the gear earned it.

Lands’ End, on the other hand, was built around:

• mass‑market catalog retail

• suburban casual wear

• price‑driven volume

• a very different customer psychology

They were never going to understand why a Willis & Geiger Hemingway jacket cost what it did, or why the brand needed small‑batch fabrics, specialized hardware, and obsessive pattern work. They saw a “heritage outdoor brand” they could scale — but Willis & Geiger was never meant to scale. It was a boutique outfitter masquerading as a clothing company.

And once Lands’ End tried to fold it into their machine, the soul leaked out:

• the fabrics changed

• the cuts softened

• the technical details disappeared

• the catalog positioning became confused

• the old clientele drifted away

It wasn’t malice — just a fundamental misunderstanding of what they had acquired.

Willis & Geiger needed a steward who understood expedition culture, safari history, and the romance of field gear. Instead, they got a corporate parent who thought they’d bought “a rugged line of jackets.”

Burt Avedon’s revival of Willis & Geiger in the late 1970s and 1980s was visionary, authentic, and beautifully executed… and yet it was almost guaranteed to fail because of forces completely outside his control. He wasn’t a corporate guy. He was:

·        a WWII fighter pilot

·        a test pilot

·        a mountaineer

·        a world traveler

·        a man who actually used expedition gear

He understood Willis & Geiger at a level no boardroom ever could. He resurrected the brand with total authenticity. Avedon didn’t modernize W&G — he restored it. He brought back:

·        the original patterns

·        the original fabrics

·        the original hardware

·        the original ethos

He even tracked down old employees and pattern makers. It was a resurrection, not a rebranding. He made gear for the people who actually needed it. Avedon’s W&G wasn’t fashion; it was:

·        expedition clothing

·        safari clothing

·        aviation clothing

·        field gear built to last decades

He was making the kind of stuff that Filson and Barbour wish they could claim lineage to. He revived the Hemingway, Lindbergh, and Roosevelt mystique. Avedon understood that Willis & Geiger wasn’t just clothing — it was heritage. He leaned into:

·        the Hemingway bush jacket

·        the Roosevelt safari coat

·        the Lindbergh flight gear

·        the Flying Tigers lineage

He made the brand feel like stepping into a golden age. The gear was exceptional. Collectors still hunt for:

·        the Hemingway jacket

·        the bush poplin shirts

·        the safari cloth trousers

·        the G‑1 flight jackets

·        the expedition parkas

Avedon’s W&G was the last gasp of true expedition outfitting in America.

Why It Was Doomed

Here’s the tragedy: Avedon built a boutique outfitter in a world that was shifting toward mass‑market retail, catalog sales, and corporate consolidation. He was a craftsman in an era of spreadsheets. The economics didn’t work. Willis & Geiger gear was:

·        expensive to make

·        slow to produce

·        dependent on small‑batch fabrics

·        reliant on skilled labor

·        not scalable

You can’t mass‑produce a safari jacket built like a piece of equipment. The customer base was too niche.

Corporate owners didn’t understand the brand.

Every one of the companies that a quired W&G thought it was “a rugged outdoor line we can scale.” But Willis & Geiger was never meant to scale. It was a heritage outfitter, not a mall brand. Lands’ End was the final mismatch. They wanted:

·        predictable margins

·        simplified SKUs

·        mass‑market fabrics

·        catalog‑friendly pricing

 Conversely, W&G required:

·        expensive materials

·        complex patterns

·        niche customers

·        slow, careful production

It was oil and water. Avedon fought them tooth and nail — and lost. The brand died because the world changed. By the late 1990s:

·        Abercrombie & Fitch had become a teen brand

·        Filson was still tiny

·        Orvis was pivoting to lifestyle

·        Technical outdoor gear (North Face, Patagonia) dominated

·        Safari travel was declining

·        Expedition culture was shrinking

I tip my hat to Burt Avedon for his noble effort, but there was no ecosystem left for a true outfitter. What we're left with is modern-day stuff lacks the character, soul, and feel that W&G delivered.

Maybe there’s hope for another resurrection because we need it. As I look around, Westley Richards "gets it". They may just be the rightful heir of W&G's reputation for old-world quality.