Why This U.S. Military Coat Killed The Bomber.

Summary

This video explores the legendary history of Eddie Bauer, the man who popularized down jackets in America and became the go-to supplier for the U.S. military during World War II. Michael showcases several vintage Eddie Bauer pieces including the B-9 Parka (designed for WWII pilots to stay warm at -70 degrees), the K2 expedition jacket, and the Everest Parka worn by Jim Whittaker on his historic Mount Everest ascent.

The story traces Eddie Bauer’s journey from running a tackle shop and making shuttlecocks to becoming the authority on down jackets. After nearly dying from hypothermia while fishing (because his wool coat was too heavy), Bauer was inspired to create lightweight down jackets. His connections to feather suppliers and wealthy clients positioned him perfectly when WWII created massive military demand for cold weather gear.

The video also covers the decline of Eddie Bauer after the founder sold the company in 1968, and introduces Crescent Down Works as the modern spiritual successor to vintage Eddie Bauer quality, founded by someone who worked in Bauer’s down testing lab in 1969.

Highlights

”Eddie Bauer’s Dad Sold 2 Acres of Downtown Seattle for a Plum Farm”

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“Eddie Bauer’s dad, a crack businessman, sold 2 acres of downtown Seattle 9 years after he got it so he can go work at a plum farm and dry prunes. So oops.” — Michael, 3:38

”Holy Crap, You Are the Only Actual Company That Did This”

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“Holy crap, you are the only actual company that did this - everybody else is delinquent. Can you make more?” — U.S. Military to Eddie Bauer, 9:25

”The B-9 Parka - Designed for -70 Degrees”

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“Most down jackets you know you could really crush them and compress them. The B-9, this one specifically, is so much feathers that it’s just like a rock.” — Michael, 10:56

”Jim Whittaker Would Need His Jacket Back”

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“50 years after his ascent, at an event celebrating his ascent, his jacket was in a museum. Jim Whittaker stood up in front of everybody in his 80s and said if he was going to climb Everest again, he would need to get his jacket back.” — Michael, 15:40

”Crescent Down Works - Eddie Bauer in Spirit”

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“Good news though is we essentially have an Eddie Bauer in spirit and that is Crescent Down Works, made in Seattle Washington. The founder of the brand, And Mikkelson, she worked with Eddie Bauer in his down testing lab in 1969.” — Michael, 18:02

Key Points

• Eddie Bauer’s Origin Story (0:40) - Eddie Bauer was the greatest American outdoor clothing brand when Mr. Bauer himself was at the helm

• The Hypothermia Incident (6:09) - Eddie nearly died from hypothermia while fishing after giving away his heavy wool coat, inspiring him to create lighter down jackets

• Weight vs Warmth (6:31) - Bauer created down jackets to save weight, not add warmth - the lightness allowed him to carry gear without caring about jacket weight

• The Shuttlecock Connection (4:10) - Eddie’s experience with feathers from his shuttlecock business gave him the supplier connections needed for down production

• WWII Military Orders (8:00) - After a military supply ship sank, Eddie Bauer coordinated cold weather gear from outdoor brands across America

• Ducks Unlimited Partnership (9:08) - When commercial feathers were rationed for military use, Bauer collaborated with Ducks Unlimited to get hunters to send in feathers

• B-9 Parka Specs (10:31) - Designed to keep pilots warm at -70 degrees for 3 hours while flying a plane

• The K2 Expedition (12:06) - Seattle climbers asked Eddie Bauer to design a light, strong jacket for climbing K2

• Pete Schoening’s Heroic Belay (13:18) - The youngest team member saved five falling climbers with an ice axe belay behind a boulder

• Jim Whittaker’s Everest Jacket (14:35) - The jacket designed to get America on top of Mount Everest, featuring Wolverine fur lining and coyote guard fur

• Velcro and Nylon Innovation (15:05) - The Everest jacket used new technologies like velcro and nylon to make jackets lighter and more compressible

• The Karakoram Hood Design (16:50) - Eddie Bauer’s solution to fur falling out of fashion - a down-stuffed brim that provides warmth without animal fur

• Eddie Bauer Sold in 1968 (16:56) - Eddie sold the company to spend time with his wife Stein; they died within 15 days of each other

• Crescent Down Works (18:04) - Modern brand founded by someone who worked with Eddie Bauer in his down testing lab in 1969

Mentions

Companies

• Eddie Bauer (0:04) - The subject of the entire video, vintage Eddie Bauer when the founder was at the helm
• L.L. Bean (8:39) - Leon Leonwood Bean, one of the American outdoor brand founders Eddie coordinated with
• Ducks Unlimited (9:08) - Partnership to collect feathers from hunters during wartime rationing
• Crescent Down Works (18:04) - Modern Seattle brand carrying on Eddie Bauer’s legacy
• Helix Sleep (4:34) - Video sponsor
• North Face (16:39) - Mentioned as rising brand in 1960s-70s outdoor boom
• Patagonia (16:39) - Mentioned as rising brand in 1960s-70s outdoor boom

Products & Technologies

• B-9 Parka (0:28) - 1943 WWII military jacket designed for -70 degree temperatures
• K2 Jacket (1:50) - 1962 expedition parka designed for climbing K2
• Everest Parka (1:07) - Jacket designed for Jim Whittaker’s Everest ascent
• Skyliner (0:00) - Eddie Bauer’s breakthrough down jacket that popularized the style
• Karakoram Expedition (16:15) - 1970s down jacket with innovative fur-free hood design
• Down Balaclava Mask (14:11) - Strange-looking 1970s Eddie Bauer face mask
• Muton Hood (11:30) - Convertible collar/hood system on B-9 Parka

People

• Eddie Bauer (0:04) - Founder of Eddie Bauer, authority on down jackets for 40 years
• Stein Bauer (2:37) - Eddie’s wife, also a fantastic painter, died within 15 days of Eddie
• Jim Whittaker (14:37) - First American to summit Mount Everest, wearing Eddie Bauer
• Lou Whittaker (14:40) - Jim’s twin brother, also involved in Everest expedition
• Pete Schoening (13:18) - Youngest K2 team member who saved five falling climbers
• Art Gilkey (12:53) - Geologist on K2 expedition whose leg clots caused team to abort
• George Bell (13:12) - Climber whose slip triggered the chain reaction fall on K2
• Gio (2:56) - Owner of webuyoldjeans.com who provides vintage gear
• And Mikkelson (18:08) - Founder of Crescent Down Works, worked in Eddie Bauer’s lab in 1969

Surprising Quotes

“I remember my uncle telling me in Russia they had these big jackets filled with goose down.” — 0:32

“Eddie Bauer’s dad, a crack businessman, sold 2 acres of downtown Seattle 9 years after he got it so he can go work at a plum farm and dry prunes. So oops.” — 3:38

“Holy crap, you are the only actual company that did this - everybody else is delinquent. Can you make more?” — 9:25

“50 years after his ascent, at an event celebrating his ascent, his jacket was in a museum. Jim Whittaker stood up in front of everybody in his 80s and said if he was going to climb Everest again, he would need to get his jacket back.” — 15:40

“Most down jackets you know you could really crush them and compress them. The B-9, this one specifically, is so much feathers that it’s just like a rock.” — 10:56

Transcript

0:00 Vintage Eddie Bauer is one of the most interesting brands of all time. For 40 years Eddie Bauer himself, this guy, was the authority on down jackets. Today we are touching on what made him that legend. Here is a preview: boom, Eddie Bauer moves into full wartime production and makes 1,000 sleeping bags for the US military, sends them to the US Military and they basically say holy crap you are the only actual company that did this, everybody else is delinquent, can you make more.

0:25 Most down jackets you know you could really crush them and compress them. The B9, this one specifically, is so much feathers that it’s just like a rock. I remember my uncle telling me in Russia they had these big jackets filled with goose down. It might seem kind of ineffective at first but we have a very short zipper, it actually only goes to here, we have all this extra room - why is that?

0:44 And this is the beginning of the story. Please strap in, get some popcorn, a hot beverage and listen to one of my favorite clothing brands stories of all time. Eddie Bauer was a bit different clothing brand when Mr Bauer himself was at the helm of the company. And by a bit different I mean the greatest American outdoor clothing brand of all time.

0:59 I’m currently wearing the jacket Mr Bauer himself designed to get America on the top of Mount Everest. It’s a tank and it’s called the Everest Parka. But also there’s this - hold on - this jacket is from 1943 and if you were flying a plane in 1943 you wanted this jacket. This was the greatest jacket you could possibly get.

1:17 He was so genius that basically the entire United States military kept calling Eddie B and being like you got to help us. To the point where when they ran out of feathers and down plumes, which we’re going to differentiate those two because those are very important, they called Eddie and were like what can you do and he was like oh I have an idea - curled chicken feathers, feather fill, interesting stuff.

1:38 I know I said this a million billion times but Eddie Bauer is the guy that popularized down jackets. We’re going to skip that part. This is by the way the grand finale of down jacket videos this year because it’s almost springtime. How beautiful is that.

1:50 This is Eddie B probably his second most famous jacket ever created - this is the K2. Called the finest cold weather high altitude article of clothing I have ever seen by a man that fell off of K2, one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. Point of all this is Eddie Bauer and his wife, once they retired from creating this brand which was at the time considered one of the greatest outdoor clothing brands, they won tennis, golfing, more shooting competitions, a dog competition - their dog Waya BT Wing or something like that. They carried perfectionism throughout their entire life, they dominated everything.

2:24 So it’s only fitting that if they made a clothing brand it would be the greatest in the world. And for a while it really undisputably was. The Bauers died within 15 days of one another and Eddie Bauer called Stein Bauer his greatest outdoor companion. Stein Bauer was also a fantastic painter.

2:49 I have some absolutely insane Eddie Bauer gear in this video. If you’re an Eddie Bauer nerd you’re probably like wow that is a crazy lineup. So that means of course I have to thank my good man Gio at webuyoldjeans.com. Although Gio does not buy only old jeans - vintage Eddie Bauer, vintage Carhartt, really anything that you have pre-1970s, even if it’s the 80s, send it to Gio.

3:15 Eddie Bauer was born in America but his family came over from Russia and cozied up to the Denny’s who were basically the founding members of Seattle. They were making Seattle and they got so cozy with them they gave the Bauers 2 acres of land in downtown Seattle, which that is like an unfathomable amount of money, that is an unbelievable value today.

3:38 Eddie Bauer’s dad, a crack businessman, sold it 9 years after he got it so he can go work at a plum farm and dry prunes. So oops. Fast forward a little bit and Eddie Bauer is meeting wealthy land owners and helping them farm game birds and everything like that, getting into the business.

3:54 And he starts his first business - Eddie Bauer’s Tackle Shop - which mainly focused on restringing tennis rackets and badminton rackets because badminton and just outdoor recreational activities in general were getting very popular around the Great Depression. Shuttlecocks were needed for badminton but the shuttlecocks were very expensive because they were coming from Europe. So Eddie said I can fix that and he did.

4:14 Shuttlecocks as you know around the outside importantly use feathers. So Eddie had to meet people that could get him feathers. The business exploded and all of a sudden he was like wow I need my own shuttlecock factory - which he made right above his tackle shop. Bing bang boom he has a flourishing business, money coming in, and he knows a lot of wealthy people. That is very important - that is the big theme here.

4:34 This video is sponsored by Helix Sleep and they said I could do whatever I wanted for this ad so I wrote a poem. Please do not feel frightened if you feel an intense sense of relaxation and intentional. My mattress sponsored by Helix makes me sleep so well. If I was a kid I’d drag this thing down the street for show and tell. Check this out I’ve had you for a while I think since September, it’s not that long, and let me tell you my sleep has never been better.

5:57 The genius thing for Eddie though is that he ran a seasonal business because when it got cold most people didn’t care if their tennis or badminton rackets weren’t strung, they didn’t need shuttlecocks. So Eddie left and he went hunting and fishing and doing all this great fun outdoor stuff.

6:09 And on one of those trips Eddie had a big thing of fish on his back and he said to his friend here take my really heavy wool coat because these fish are heavy I’ll be fine. And then he essentially died - he almost died. I thought Eddie Bauer was saying the problem with his wool jacket was that he took it off because it was too warm but in reality what he said on this interview was he took it off because it was too heavy.

6:32 And he wanted to create a down jacket because that was light enough where he didn’t care about the extra weight on his back when he was trekking through the woods holding something that was also very heavy. It was to save weight, not add warmth.

6:48 So I’m assuming Eddie Bauer recovers from his hypothermia and he’s like oh wait a minute the solution is I remember my uncle telling me in Russia they had these big jackets filled with goose down. My shuttlecocks use feathers. I think I saw this advertisement in 1928 about a sleeping bag with baffled feathers. Let me put all that together and make a really light jacket.

7:07 And the final thing that kind of tied everything together was that Eddie Bauer was already a successful businessman that was doing well and had clients that were also doing very very well. Because wool was far cheaper than down and feathers because the US didn’t have a lot of byproducts from water fowl - that just wasn’t in the diet of the American people.

7:24 The important thing about this jacket was Eddie B made a down jacket when I feel like everybody else was trying to lower costs, along with engineering it to be lighter at every possible place that he could be with the fabric, with the fill, everything.

7:45 Essentially Eddie B’s jackets, like I said, they were a hit right out of the gate. People loved them. Specifically professional pilots - the down parka and the down trousers when put together made the down flight suit. And Alaskan bush pilots were like this is the most amazing jacket I’ve ever had in my entire life.

8:01 And then all of a sudden everything changed very very fast. There was a ship going from Seattle to Alaska that sunk and on that ship there were down sleeping bags, bunch of other cold weather gear and snow shoots most importantly. So what happened was the US government, the military, called Eddie Bauer and said Eddie it’s go time. You need to get every single cold weather sleeping bag and cold weather gear you can possibly get in the United States of America and send it to us now.

8:25 Planes are flying, war is going on, Saving Private Ryan is being filmed, all this stuff is happening. And Eddie Bauer calls the United States outdoor American legends themselves - Mr Leon Leonwood Bean, Mr Abercrombie, Mr Fitch, Mr Gokey, Mr Woods - legends of the United States outdoor service, whatever you want to call it, are being phoned by the legend himself Eddie Bauer and Eddie’s saying send everything.

8:50 So now trucks in Maine, Wisconsin, New York City, all around the entire country are being loaded up with the finest gear the country can make and being sent to Seattle to Eddie Bauer’s house where he will then distribute them.

9:00 Boom. Another bomb drops. All of a sudden the US government says there is no commercial use of feathers or down products at all - needs to go to the military. So Eddie Bauer collaborates with Ducks Unlimited and says hey hunters all around the United States, if you are shooting water fowl, send in the feathers, send in the down to me. I will clean them. We need them for the war.

9:20 Boom. Eddie Bauer moves into full wartime production and makes 1,000 sleeping bags for the US military, sends them to the US Military and they basically say holy crap you are the only actual company that did this, everybody else is delinquent, can you make more. Boom. Eddie Bauer makes a thousand more and the US military is essentially like this guy is our guy. Eddie Bauer is our guy.

9:36 The government orders 10,000 pack boards and requests him to be delivered in 2 days. Eddie Bauer pulls in another manufacturer, they hit the deadline. Since Eddie Bauer designed the jacket that everybody was copying, he was way faster, he was undercutting the competition, he was making things cheaper, better and faster, and even packing them more efficiently so you could store more and transport more at the same time and save money and be more effective. A monster.

10:00 I am wearing the legend from that era - the B9 Parka. This is an incredibly heavy jacket one because of the materials on the inside and it’s very beautiful and this is like silk, it’s gorgeous. But this is not filled solely with down - it’s down and feathers because the US did not have a surplus of both.

10:15 One year before this exact jacket is made Eddie Bauer gets a call that says hey Eddie I know you’re making 200,000 sleeping bags a year for us but we need you on something even more important in Ohio, please get here immediately. That call that Eddie B received was essentially the US military saying hey design this jacket - the B9 Parka - a jacket that needs to keep a pilot warm at -70 degrees for 3 hours while they are flying a plane.

10:40 It’s not the puffiest jacket in the world but wow I overheat in it very very fast. It’s like 30 outside so that’s probably why. But anyway we’re rapidly losing daylight so I might have to do the rest of this video tomorrow.

10:52 Let’s go over the B9 Parka - it is insane. And right now it’s in collar mode. Most down jackets you know you could really crush them and compress them. The B9 this one specifically is so much feathers that it’s just like a rock - like it doesn’t really compress and that makes it way way heavier.

11:07 The entire sleeve is reinforced with another layer of cotton right here. We also have this double gusset system under the arm to give you a lot more mobility. It might seem kind of ineffective at first but we have a very short zipper, it actually only goes to here, we have all this extra room - why is that? The majority of the time that you’re wearing this jacket you will be sitting down.

11:25 Then finally we have this giant bump on the back of my neck - I think I’m doing this right - this is collar mode of a muton hood. It converts into a hood that you could wear like a regular hood and it’s not a big giant hood that goes over your face. It is for max visibility so you can look out side to side.

11:43 But also it was very important that this hood was sealed completely around your face to keep in the max amount of warmth. But something we also have right here is a really cool neck wind blocker and what I like about it is how many times we can tighten it - so this is setting one, this is setting two, setting three is even tighter.

12:02 Good morning. You look good, look chipper. How is everybody doing? K2 - second highest mountain in the world, one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. This is a jacket that was designed to climb it. And this jacket, this specific one that I’m wearing right now, this bad boy was owned previously by a mountaineer - someone that was climbing mountains - and the man wearing it almost died on Mount Whitney. So this is really as tough as it can get.

12:28 And most of the climbers were from Seattle so obviously they went up to their man Eddie Bauer and said hey can you design a jacket that is very light, very strong, gives us a lot of movement, and it also should be able to be cinched around the waist. And although I don’t really use this one much at all, should be able to be cinched down around the bottom of the jacket as well. Eddie Bauer said absolutely I would freaking love that, that is great marketing for me. Let’s go boys.

12:48 So they set out to do it and they got all the way to Camp 8 and then there was a terrible storm so they hunkered down for a while. And then a man named Art Gilkey was going from one tent to another - he was a geologist, not that that matters for the story - on his way he collapsed for pain in his leg that he thought was a cramp. His legs were clotting, both of them, which is obviously no good when you have to climb one of the most dangerous mountains in the world.

13:09 So the team abandoned their climb and started to go down to Camp 7. Descent was going quite well but all of a sudden George Bell slips and falls and basically starts a chain reaction and five other men start falling as well.

13:20 Pete Schoening, the youngest member of the team and one of the members that did not have experience climbing mountains this high, is at the top with a hip belay and an ice axe and a boulder in front of him. Everybody’s falling. He starts to see the slip, he clamps his ice axe behind the boulder and holds on and arrests the fall of all of the men.

13:37 There was a new nylon rope that they said stretched to half its length but it still held. And that entire group of men was dangling as Pete Schoening was just being the freaking Hulk. And the reason they said they had him on the actual expedition was because he always had a cheery demeanor.

13:52 Even though the climb was not a success, the story is obviously a legend and the jacket that went with it was called one of the greatest cold weather high altitude jackets ever made. And the press was insane. The story is born.

14:09 I made a short about this jacket and this mask already and I said Eddie Bauer used to be a little strange. People took issue with the fact that I said strange - are we seeing the same thing? Does this not seem strange to you? Do you see this when you walk your dog every day? Everybody’s like hey neighbor how’s it going. This is Eddie Bauer down balaclava mask from the 1970s, big ribbing in the back. It is very warm on your face. I can’t imagine climbing a mountain wearing this and sweating into this. I feel like it would be miserable.

14:33 Anyways this is the jacket that was made for America to get on top of Mount Everest. Specifically a man named Jim Whittaker, although his brother was also very involved - his twin brother Lou Whittaker. And it’s cool to see this history because there’s still like 4K interviews with Jim Whittaker which is awesome. Seems like a very nice guy.

14:50 This is that jacket designed to climb Mount Everest. And it does look a lot cooler when Jim Whittaker, who’s much bigger than me, is standing on Mount Everest waving the United States flag and wearing it. You wouldn’t think it’s the same jacket - it’s just a monster of down, that’s really it.

15:05 And it also uses a new fun - well two fun technologies. The first one velcro. And then of course we’re using nylon now. This jacket is absolutely just stuffed to the gills with down. And the big point of nylon was you can make the jacket even lighter and stuff more down in it to make it warm while having it be really really compressible. So that’s the big deal here.

15:23 And oh and we have this hood which reminds me of a really bad hair dye job. Wolverine fur on the inside because that’s the most frost resistant. And then coyote guard fur on the outside to finish the job to keep a little warm pocket of air around your face so your breath doesn’t freeze.

15:35 Coolest story about Jim - well besides climbing Mount Everest - coolest story is 50 years after his ascent, at an event celebrating his ascent, his jacket was in a museum. It was all fancy preserved as it should be. He stood up, Jim Whittaker, in front of everybody in his 80s and said if he was going to climb Everest again he would need to get his jacket back. You know Jim was in the car being like oh that’s going to hit so hard when I say that.

16:00 There’s a whole documentary on Mr Whittaker’s ascent so you should definitely watch that, it’s very very cool. But that is where we see a big big change in Eddie Bauer and how we get to Eddie Bauer that we have today.

16:09 But there is one last jacket that I would like to show you because the hood is insane. The hood is the best part of the whole jacket. Notice - no fur on this jacket. This is the Karakoram Expedition in avocado - called avocado by Eddie Bauer himself.

16:23 Oh you’ll see they tucked in first thing - they tucked in the storm cuffs so now they’re a little more protected. But also we have the sick 1970s Eddie B buttons which are so cool. This jacket represents a very important series of events.

16:37 One - 1960s, 1970s outdoor activities and stuff like that is exploding. North Face, Patagonia, all these brands are rising. Fleece is getting super popular. Jackets are being made cheaper in different areas in different ways. People are having preferences. Eddie Bauer isn’t the undisputed king.

16:54 And also maybe it would have been but Eddie Bauer sold his company to his partner in 1968 to spend time with his wife Stein. Eddie Bauer got sold a lot, lot of different leadership.

17:01 But look at this hood - let me show you this real quick. This entire crazy hood system was designed in response to fur not being popular on down jackets anymore. So it’s pretty insane. The first thing you’ll notice - immediately gives you full Homer Simpson. And the amount of warmth in this little cone of down is incredibly immense. It is warming up my entire head, you could feel it.

17:22 And then this little down stuffed brim is Eddie Bauer’s solution to not having fur on the outside. I live in Maine now as you know and if I go to a thrift store and I see L.L. Bean boots from the 50s or the 60s or something they look the exact or close to the exact same that they do now. You can’t really tell.

17:38 This is a 1960s Karakoram. This is their Karakoram for modern days. If modern day Eddie Bauer just - they just made a few, they don’t have to make a ton, I know it won’t sell, you’re going for the cheaper market and everything like that - they just made a few pretty period accurate K2s, Skyliners, B9s, just made them monsters, I would just be all over those things.

17:58 You can get a duck boot from anywhere nowadays but it’s like I want the L.L. Bean one because they made it, they invented it. I’d go gaga if they did that.

18:02 Good news though is we essentially have an Eddie Bauer in spirit and that is Crescent Down Works, made in Seattle Washington. The founder of the brand, And Mikkelson, she worked with Eddie Bauer in his down testing lab in 1969. That is as close as you can get to Eddie Bauer of old.

18:16 Okay anyway that’s about it. Thank you for watching, I really do appreciate it. I will see you all next week with one more winter video - winter boots I feel like.