They may sell a subset of their product to yuppies, but you can still outfit yourself for just about any outdoor pursuit with these companies and trust the gear they sell. TNF and BD tents are still high quality, TNF and BD and Patagonia jackets can be used on any trip. And Arcteryx is some of the highest quality cold weather clothing in the world. I would probably only prefer Western Mountaineering or Hilleberg to a combination of products from these 4 manufacturers. BD probably makes more money on selling headlamps to anglers and hunters than they do on yuppies buying climbing pants.
The brands are nowhere near the lowend lifestyle fashion grab-bags that Oakley, Hurley, Quiksilver or O'Neill are...
I think you have this backwards. They make their profit off the yuppies buying the latest product year after year. The hardcore users aren't buying new tents, jackets, snow pants, etc every year.
except black diamond?
And those yuppies may convert to hardcore outdoor users, and bring their brand loyalty with them.
If anything these companies are a pretty good example of a kind of principled capitalism, in so much as their operations are coextensive with both lifestyle stuff the commenter derides and their initial principles and commitment to quality.
And on top of that, if one thinks these are outliers, two of these companies where started by the same guy, in different times.
Similarly, it is intuitive that professional investors are going to want to try to buy companies like Hurley and Billabong amidst a societal trend of more people wanting to seem more surfer-like and buying T-shirts that convey the message "I'm into surf culture".
The anticapitalist tone of the linked article is especially ironic given that the popularity of surfing in the non-Hawai'ian world was driven entirely by the post-WWII economic expansion in the US mainland and AUS that gave teenage baby boomers spending money in the early 60's. Surfing has always been co-opted by capitalism; there are old dudes in the lineup at Dana Point who were bitching about the fakeness of the Beach Boys and Gidget when they were young men 50+ years ago.
None of this is new.
Isn’t their slogan now “built for urban winters”? They aren’t even pretending to be genuine any more, and that only makes them more appealing to posers, who think that “urban” means something else
It used to be that if you were wearing Canada Goose, it was because you were on some kind of expedition to the Arctic. Then movie directors decided Canada Goose was the way to go to stay cozy while on an outdoor movie set. I think it was Sundance 2007 and all of the sudden all the cool kids had Canada Goose parkas.
Now middle class people wear Canada Goose parkas to signal to others their propensity for getting ripped off.