Archives have become a focal point in brand storytelling. That’s how REI Co-op and Japanese brand Beams brought new life to REI’s iconic 1986 Expedition Parka, staying faithful to the original while adding details that honor the co-op’s outdoor heritage.
Founded by outdoor enthusiasts Mary and Lloyd Anderson in 1938, REI Co-op has a long history to draw on. Its living archive, established in 2019, provides the brand a way to connect its history to its evolving product line. WWD has followed REI’s evolution for decades: in 1978, its sister publication The Daily News Record, or DNR, described REI’s Seattle store as “a toy store for big kids.”
In a recent Zoom conversation with WWD, REI’s Will Dunn, brand archivist; Scott Mosher, brand creative director, and Lauren Arthur, lead apparel designer discussed how the Beams collaboration and the archive continue to inspire product development and storytelling.
The interview excerpt below features Dunn, Mosher and Arthur, and has been shortened for context.
How did the Beams collaboration begin?
Scott Mosher: The first thing they [Beams] said when they came to us was, “Show me the archive.” It’s cool to see your brand and your brand story through someone else’s eyes. When I first met Keita “Gonzo” Kobayashi, influential menswear buyer for Beams, he said, “Of course we want to work with you. REI’s the quintessential American outdoor brand.” It never occurred to me to say something like that.…I thought, we have been around a long time, and we have these pieces that are ubiquitous in the outdoors. This was an opportunity to shine a light on one of those.
REI Co-op x Beams limited-edition 1986 Expedition Parka. Courtesy REI Co-op Brand Archive.
How does the archive help the team improve on those designs?
Lauren Arthur: Materials are where we’ve made great advances in such a short amount of time. That changes where we might take an archive product today: Is this the best solution now, knowing what we know? We talked a lot about that with the Beams jacket. We made some unique choices as we were refining and tweaking. We absolutely have to take what is in the archive and ask, knowing what we know today, would this be the best way to do this?
How did the REI archive begin?
Will Dunn: We started the archive project in 2019. Before that, it was a locked closet full of all sorts of things. The space was full of treasures. I got involved and eventually it lead to building the archive we have currently. As the manager of the archives and the co-op historian, I think of the archive as a stewardship of the equity we’ve [REI] earned: finance stewards our money, and the archive stewards that equity. It’s a big responsibility.
What is the oldest object in your archive?
W.D.: Our oldest objects are from 1865. They’re tintypes, a historic photographic process, from our cofounders, Lloyd and Mary Anderson. It’s really something to zoom all the way out and look that far back and connect that to who Lloyd and Mary were in 1938, when they were creating a project like the co-op in Seattle, during a wild time in world history.
L.A.: That’s when Lloyd and Mary were helping to lead climbing classes, taking men and women up to take these courses when women weren’t really allowed to be doing that. Also, people didn’t really have extra money or spare time. I like to credit Mary for a lot of that. She was there leading the way. I love showing those early images of women wearing pants rock climbing, just being real punk rock in the 1930s.
REI Co-op parka and 1960 REI Co-op catalogue entry. Courtesy REI Co-op Brand Archive.
Lloyd and Mary helped shape outdoor gear, and their products remain among the category’s earliest inclusive designs. The team called this “cooperative design”: products made with users in mind that continue to evolve with the brand.
How has that founding history extended into educating your consumers?
S.M.: Going all the way back, education has been a big part of the co-op. Even if someone wasn’t born and raised in the outdoors, people could tell there’s authenticity. Wherever we can bring education and inspiration together is where the magic happens.
That spirit of education was reflected in a DIY department, where customers could design gear based on what also sold in the store, as noted in DNR’s 1978 article. At the time, the co-op had 800,000 members, today, membership ranges in the millions.
REI Co-op catalogue, 1938. Courtesy REI Co-op Brand Archive and “Stocking the Good Life” DNR, 1978. Fairchild Archive
The term reciprocity matters a lot to how I think about brands and archives. What does it look like at REI?
S.M.: We extend that to our members, the people who have really informed what we make and how we make it. We call that cooperative design here, but it’s something that’s always existed. We don’t have professional athletes. We have the people who go out there. My favorite thing is when something is donated to the archive and it’s been modified in some way by someone, and it’s like, that zipper pull, that’s really smart, what they did there. We do tons of field testing with people, but the archive is also a record of how people actually use things, and it’s so informative.
Archives easily tie back to understanding sustainability. How does that work at REI? And why is it important?
S.M.: There’s a big responsibility we have, because people trust us. They expect us to make decisions that are good for the environment. The Beams jacket is a good example of that. We could make that jacket as a stitch-for-stitch replica of exactly what we did in the past. Instead, we asked how we could make it look essentially like the jacket, but with 100 percent recycled materials.
L.A.: We’re a climate label certified brand now. Anywhere we can, we’re trying to make it better. In some ways the customer wants what they want, and if we can give them what they want and make it better, I feel like they just say, “Thank you.”
How often do you bring the archive into your marketing campaigns? Does it depend on the object or product launch?
S.M.: There’s definitely a spotlight on it when we do a collaboration. It’s some of the storytelling we’re most proud of, because it references our history, where we’re going, and how we’re participating in outdoor culture.…Anytime Lauren and her team dip into the archive for a collection, we almost always try to tell that story somehow. Some of the first fleece out there, the first zip-off pants: that’s real history. Whenever we can say, “We’re launching this new thing, and guess what? We’ve been making these since 1990,” people say, “Oh, wow. Cool.”
REI Co-op archives, Seattle. Courtesy REI Co-op Brand Archive.
If nothing else existed in your archive, which five items or garments could tell the whole brand story, could resonate across REI’s identity and don’t need to evolve?
S.M.: I think you can really trace these through our history from product to product. Why do we still have this? Why is this the ultimate version of that thing? It’s a pan. It’s a chair. It’s a simple summit pack that now people just use for everything. And then, of course, the half dome tent and the Magma sleeping bag. Maybe something will surpass these at some point, but these are top REI icons.
Other historical objects Will Dunn shared include Mary Anderson’s ice axe, catalogues and Freezer Fred, the wonderfully wacky thermoplastic test dummy that helped improve the Magma sleeping bag.
Brand heritage feels like a powerful antidote to where we are culturally. Considering conversations around AI, why do archives matter to brand storytelling in this moment?
W.D.: I don’t think people understand that this is also an age of really accelerated forgetting…so many primary sources only live in archives. They’re really precious, and they teach us a lot about ourselves and the brand that we wouldn’t otherwise understand.
Available now, the Beams x REI Co-op Expedition Parka brings an iconic design into the present. It also reflects how REI’s archive continues to inform the brand’s next chapter, connecting its heritage with ideas and innovation shaping its products today.