Kolby and the Worn Wear crew ... saved me from losing my mind. That shirt keeps my toddler sons at play in my imagination.
Crepe-thin, it wore more like Irish linen than an organic cotton knit, and it saw a lot of service during muggy New England summers … for example, as the deputy to the chief engineer of Lobstrania, our world-famous sandcastle in Maine. (Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it.) And let us not forget the early iterations of Lucky, the star- crossed sand fortresses constructed at the start of each vacation right at the waterline. The shirt often smelled like the last thing I grilled. Good thing it dried in a flash, too: I had it on when a mutiny of all the Lucky cousins led to a dunking in the creek at high tide. Uncle. As I told Kolby, the shirt came along on some great trips—like the journey the boys’ mom and I took so our marriage might survive them. We were missing each other under the same roof, mostly present only for the co-parenting, so we signed up as relay partners in a three-sport adventure race in New Zealand. At first, with the race prep, we saw even less of each other. On my first
Class II rapid, I nearly drowned and lost my wedding band—not the symbolism I was after. Even so, it was great to have a shared passion that wasn’t potty training. Once we arrived on New Zealand’s South Island, we had to arrange for race support and get clear on the course. Some of it was unmarked trail. Some of it was whitewater. The Kiwis? Tough competition, mate. Some of them resembled merino rams. July 2020. Corona hair. Corona neck hair, too. A phone call out of the blue, an invita- tion to come by the Ventura store, aka Great Pacific Iron Works. Your shirt’s ready for curbside pickup. Soon, it’s back in my hands. Later, it’s back on my back. It clashes, but to my eye it’s more stylish than ever. I had no idea when I first bought it 16 years ago that I’d eventually work for the company that made it. Now at Patagonia, I’m well versed in the eco-virtues of repair. How it keeps clothes out of landfills, reduces all the waste (especially the use of fresh water) that comes from manufacturing more clothes
than most of us will ever need, cuts carbon emissions. Along with recycling, repair is a critical element of “circularity,” the business world’s buzzword for keeping all the raw materials in use. What if we don’t need to drill, mine, clear-cut, extract so much anymore. What if instead we find ways to keep reusing what we’ve already harvested? Great idea. But if circularity is to replace our disposable con- sumer culture, it’ll require a shift in mentality. We’ll have to see recycled as better than new, to pay for some things—the same thing— more than once. Will we? If Kolby’s repair hadn’t come free, would I have paid for it? Yeah, so maybe. If I’m honest, though, the reason I would pony up is more selfish than virtuous. Kolby and the Worn Wear crew didn’t repair a shirt; they saved me from losing my mind. That shirt keeps my toddler sons at play in my imagination.
Years of play had run their course on Brad Wieners’ old plaid button up. Nothing a little repair work couldn’t fix. Tim Davis
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