For more than a century, Eddie Bauer has been synonymous with American outdoor adventure apparel. Now the iconic brand is facing the collapse of most of its brick-and-mortar business.
The retailer’s nearly 200 stores across the United States and Canada are expected to shutter after the operating entity behind the stores failed to find a buyer during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.
Eddie Bauer, one of the oldest brands in American outdoor apparel, has a storied history. It’s also faced bankruptcy twice before.
The brand was founded in Seattle in 1920 by outdoorsman Eddie Bauer, who two decades later patented the first quilted goose-down jacket in the country.
At its height, Eddie Bauer had more than 500 stores worldwide, including hundreds across North America and additional locations in Japan and Germany.
Today, Eddie Bauer’s retail footprint has greatly shrunk.
Eddie Bauer LLC, an entity of retail holding company Catalyst Brands that licenses the rights to operate Eddie Bauer stores across North America, has said in court papers in its bankruptcy case that liquidation sales have been underway at the US and Canadian stores.
Those store-closing sales are expected to wrap up before April 30, according to recent court filings.
The bankruptcy does not impact Eddie Bauer’s manufacturing, wholesale, or e-commerce operations, nor its retail business outside the US and Canada. Japan is home to several Eddie Bauer stores.
Here’s a look back at the Eddie Bauer brand through the years:
Eddie Bauer, an outdoorsman and businessman
The late Bauer patented the iconic water-resistant, bomber-style “Skyliner” jacket in 1940. He was inspired to create the coat after a near-fatal experience with hypothermia during a winter fishing trip in Washington state.
”I was climbing a very steep hill when I started to get sleepy,” Bauer said in a 1981 interview with The New York Times while describing the encounter. ”I reached to touch my back and it was ice. I realized I was freezing to death.”
Apparel built for harsh conditions
Over the years, the Eddie Bauer brand cemented its place in the outdoor apparel industry through durable, innovative gear and clothing designed to withstand extreme conditions.
Eddie Bauer outfitted the first American ascent of Mount Everest
Eddie Bauer gear has long been used by adventurers.
In 1953, Bauer created his first mountaineering parka for the American team attempting the first ascent of K2 mountain in Pakistan.
In the decades that followed, the Eddie Bauer brand continued outfitting elite climbing teams with parkas and other cold-weather gear, including the first American team to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1963.
General Mills once owned Eddie Bauer
General Mills Inc. is a big part of Eddie Bauer’s history.
The cereal maker and food conglomerate owned the outdoor apparel brand from 1971 to 1988.
General Mills built up Eddie Bauer into a prominent retail brand, expanding it to about 60 stores before selling it to Spiegel Inc. for $260 million.
A longtime partnership with Ford
Eddie Bauer and Ford Motor Company partnered in the early 1980s to launch special edition Eddie Bauer vehicles. That collaboration lasted for nearly three decades.
Under the partnership, models like the Ford Explorer, Expedition, and F-150 featured Eddie Bauer trim branding and upgrades, including leather interiors and two-tone exteriors.
The Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer was particularly popular.
“Customers come in and ask to see the Eddie Bauer version, and it’s almost sold on sight,” a general manager of an Ohio car dealership told The Plain Dealer newspaper in 1991.
Eddie Bauer’s environmental advocacy
In 2000, Eddie Bauer partnered with the environmental organization Riverkeeper on the Eddie Bauer-Riverkeeper Kayak Challenge held on the Hudson River near Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers.
Actor brothers Alec Baldwin and Billy Baldwin were among the participants at the event. Photos from the challenge show that the Baldwin brothers got soaked.
Two bankruptcy filings
Eddie Bauer has previously been through two Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructurings.
The first time was in 2003 when its then-parent company, Spiegel, filed for bankruptcy. Eddie Bauer emerged from that bankruptcy two years later as a stand-alone company.
Facing mounting debt, the retailer filed for Chapter 11 in 2009 and was acquired by private equity firm Golden Gate Capital later that year through a bankruptcy auction.
The brand was later acquired by Authentic Brands Group, in partnership with SPARC Group (which has since become Catalyst Brands), in 2021.
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