How many north face stores are there

The North Face stores in Netherlands Stores selling this brand. Singel Amsterdam Netherlands. Elandsgracht 57 Amsterdam Netherlands. Javastraat Amsterdam Netherlands.

Vijzelstraat Amsterdam Netherlands. Solebox Amsterdam. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal Amsterdam Netherlands. Leidsestraat 25 Amsterdam Netherlands. Refine your search to other cities of the nation: Netherlands.

Luxury stores Streetwear store Eyewear stores Shoes stores Bags and leather goods stores Sneakers stores. But North Face and Patagonia are both wrestling with a more consequential paradox, one that is central to contemporary consumerism: we want to feel morally good about the things we buy.

And both companies have been phenomenally successful because they have crafted an image that is about more than just being ethical and environmentally friendly, but about nature, adventure, exploration — ideas more grandiose than simply selling you a jacket, taking your money and trying not to harm the earth too much along the way.

But the paradox is that by presenting themselves this way, they are selling a lot more jackets. You might call this the authenticity problem. And for all their similarities, the two companies are taking radically different approaches to solving it. D oug Tompkins and Yvon Choiunar d were the kind of outcast adolescents who found a home in the great outdoors.

Both men became passionate about climbing and surfing in the American west in the middle of the last century. Both The North Face and Patagonia have their roots in exploring the sort of remote places about which guidebooks had not been written.

In those days, getting back to uncorrupted nature and reading Thoreau by the campfire slotted in well with the nascent counterculture. Tompkins opened the first The North Face retail store selling mountaineering equipment in the North Beach neighbourhood of San Francisco in At first, he created and forged reusable steel pitons that were hammered into rock faces and then removed.

Then, to help preserve climbing routes from disfigurement, Chouinard changed to aluminium chocks that could be wedged in by hand and did not leave a trace behind. Early in their friendship, a white-water kayaking trip together in California ended with Chouinard getting 15 stitches in his face. Chouinard had also branched out from mountaineering equipment. He had begun to import climbing wear, for sale, and in , founded a new company named Patagonia.

One of his earliest employees was Kris McDivitt, a downhill ski-racer. They married in , a union of sorts between the two companies. Together the couple eventually bought 2. The challenge of taking the moral high ground while still making and selling things is something that Rick Ridgeway also thinks about a great deal.

Populating the world with more stuff that will eventually get thrown away is bad for the planet; the popularising of outdoor culture of all sorts is bad for specific places of natural beauty, which risk being overrun with people; and finally — and most difficult — the entire ethos of growth and profit and consumption is unsustainable for humanity and the health of the planet.

Jill Dumain, the director of environment strategy, who has been at Patagonia for more than 27 years, can easily list all the ways the company is trying to do the right thing, among them the decision, in the s, to use only organic cotton, and in to switch to torture-free goose down. The North Face made the same move in It has tried to replace as many of its synthetic materials as possible with recycled ones, although finding recycled zippers and buttons has been a struggle. Socially, it is committed to fair trade in its supply chain, in the mills and sewing factories it works with.

This has led to the company splitting up with suppliers who were not willing or able to make the changes it demanded. These are the sorts of problems that Patagonia has chosen to explore to an almost obsessive degree. Over time, Chouinard and Ridgeway matured into their roles as aging renegades: they appear as delightfully cranky old friends in a documentary, Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless , which follows a young writer and photographer as he attempts to retrace their now-legendary trip from California to Chile.

Their adventures continued into December of , when Chouinard, Ridgeway, Tompkins, and three other friends went on a seemingly gentle five-day kayaking trip to southern Chile.

Ridgeway, who is 67, and Tompkins, 72, shared a kayak and it capsized in heavy waves in 4C water. The six men were rescued via patrol boat and helicopter but Tompkins suffered from severe hypothermia. He died in a hospital that night.

It was a heartfelt tribute to his old friend. In his book, Chouinard comes off as a grumpy, seasoned old-timer, constantly bemoaning the lack of credibility in everyone, everywhere. Chouinard and his wife Malinda divide their time between Ventura and their long-time home in Jackson Hole, a mountain resort town in Wyoming now known as a playground for the super-rich — Harrison Ford, Sandra Bullock and Dick Cheney all have homes there.

Patagonia employees talk about Chouinard with the devotion usually reserved for cult leaders, but with a tone that suggests that they also view him as a somewhat mercurial genius. By keeping Patagonia as a privately owned business, Chouinard has been able to run it in a way that stays true to his values.

Patagonia is organised as a for-profit company, known as a B-Corp , with certification for its social and environmental commitment.

But, while Tompkins left business altogether to save the wilderness, Chouinard seems like a man who will never stop being conflicted about what running a successful business entails. But it is committed to trying. The buildings occupy a 5. The company prides itself in hiring relatively few people but looking after them all. There is something about being on the Patagonia campus that feels like being in a Scandinavian country — albeit one with banana plants, blooming agaves and jacaranda trees.

On Wednesday, celebrity chef Angela Dimayuga will bring a select number of consumers along for the ride as she explores the flavors of New York that bring her inspiration. On Thursday, model and activist Gabrielle Richardson will take over Skylight Soho to curate an art exhibition under the theme of exploration.

The week will culminate with The North Face and 15 organizations around the world partnering to launch a global Change. The North Face joins a growing list of outdoor brands such as REI and Patagonia that are becoming increasingly vocal about social causes, most notably environmental protection. For such names, closing their doors and trading off short-term profits has become a powerful tool to make a statement about serious global issues.

REI in launched OptOutside — an initiative that sees the retailer close its doors on Black Friday, pay its employees for the day and encourage them, and REI shoppers, to get out and enjoy the outdoors.