Filson in Seattle, since 1897
Clinton C. Filson opened his store on First Avenue in Seattle in 1897, a few steps from where the steamship Portland had docked with a ton of Klondike gold in its hold. Something like a hundred thousand people set off north over the next two years, most of them badly equipped, and Filson's business was making sure the ones who came through his shop were not. He ran his own mill and made Mackinaw wool coats, blankets and knit goods. When the rush collapsed and the returning prospectors went into logging instead, he kept selling to them, which is how a gold rush outfitter became a work clothing company.
Tin cloth and Mackinaw wool
Tin cloth is a heavy cotton canvas finished with oil and wax. It arrives stiff enough to stand up on its own, sheds rain rather than soaking it, and softens over a season into the shape of whoever is using it. Mackinaw wool is the other: a dense woollen that keeps insulating when it is wet, which is the property that mattered in the Yukon and still matters in a British December. Neither is a modern material and neither needs to be. Both appear across the range here — on jackets, on bags, on hats — and both are the reason a Filson piece is heavy in the hand and expensive on the shelf.
The Filson bags, jackets and clothing we stock
Bags are the bulk of it. The Dryden line is the travelling end — briefcases, backpacks and travel packs in a hard-wearing synthetic rather than canvas, built to be thrown into a boot rather than carried carefully. Rugged twill and tin cloth duffles are the heavier, slower option, the ones that look better after a decade. Beyond bags, the range runs to cruiser jackets in tin cloth and Mackinaw plaid, Alaskan Guide and feather cloth shirts, and a full run of caps and brimmed hats. There is a small amount of dog gear too — collars, leashes and a blaze orange chest protector — which is less of a surprise than it sounds from a company that has been outfitting shooting and hunting since the 1890s. Anything reduced is grouped in the Filson sale, and what sits there changes as stock runs down through the season.
Browse Filson jackets and coats, see Filson shirts, or look at Filson t-shirts.
