Mountain Style: The Scots who played a part in the evolution of outdoor gear

Inevitably perhaps, the first Scot to be mentioned in Mountain Style, Henry Iddon and Max Leonard’s new book charting the evolution of British outdoor clothing from 1953-2000, is the Glasgow chemist Charles Macintosh, facilitator of the eponymous garment. “In 1823,” they write, “he patented a material in which a layer of rubber was sandwiched between two layers of fabric. Drawbacks were that it smelled terrible, and until the invention of vulcanisation, it would stiffen when cold. While effective for the man or woman on the street, the impermeable barrier did not ‘breathe’, and so was useless during any kind of physical exertion.”

Arguably the single greatest challenge facing the outdoor gear industry in the second half of the 20th century was to succeed where Macintosh had failed and create clothing that was both waterproof and breathable – an arms race that eventually gave us wonder-materials like Gore-Tex and Pertex that we take for granted today. Neither of these contemporary market leaders was developed in Scotland – Gore-Tex came from the US, while Pertex was born in northern England. However, Scots still feature prominently in the warp and weft of the Mountain Style story.

A Black's anorak - in the 1960s, the anorak was considered "almost the climbers’ ‘badge of trade'". | Henry Iddon / Isola

According to Iddon and Leonard, by the 1960s Blacks of Greenock “held a leading position in the outdoor marketplace.” Originally a sailmaker, the company had pivoted to tentmaking in 1904, when its founder Thomas Black was succeeded by his son (also Thomas), and had seen business boom following the outbreak of the First World War, when it had made hospital tents and other shelters for the British Army. By the Sixties it had added sleeping bags to its repertoire and also anoraks “very much in the by-now-traditional westernised outdoor style: hooded and with a short zip at the throat and a drawcord at the waist.” But even though The Climber magazine still felt able to describe the anorak as “almost the climbers’ ‘badge of trade’” in 1967, by this point it was already on the verge of being superseded by lightweight nylon jackets.

Initially, the waterproof jackets developed by companies like Peter Storm offered little in the way of breathability: hikers in only light or moderate rain showers had to calculate whether the moisture falling from the sky would be likely to get them wetter than the sweat they would produce if they decided to don an impermeable outer layer. The invention of Gore-Tex in the US, however – first made available in the UK in 1977 via English manufacturers Berghaus – was a game-changer. Suddenly, it was possible to buy a jacket that was both waterproof and breathable.

That said, the early days for Gore-Tex did not go smoothly. The prototype membrane was prone to failure if the surface became contaminated with oils or other substances, and the material would also sometimes delaminate. Concerned that the whole concept might be in jeopardy, Gore offered to replace any unsatisfactory first-generation garments with improved second-generation ones free of charge. For Ian Sykes of Nevisport in Fort William, it was as if all his Christmases had come early. “They were putting the [Gore-Tex] membrane onto a nylon material, but it wasn’t sticking very well,” he recalls in Mountain Style. “While most jackets were OK, on quite a lot of them it was bubbling off. Gore told us that if anyone comes in with one bubbling up... just give them a new one. It was a license to print money, because everybody knew that if it bubbles up, they’d get a new one! We gave loads away, and Gore just paid us for them. [Apparently] we sold more Gore-Tex than the rest of Britain put together that year, and it was only a little shop.”

A Tulloch Mountaincraft jacket made of cotton and nylon - the company was established in 1972 in the Highland village of the same name. | Henry Iddon / Isola

Various other Scottish names, some familiar, some less-so, make cameo appearances. Graham Tiso crops up briefly in a section on the “rise of the retailers” in the 1960s and there’s also a short section on Tulloch Mountaincraft (TMC), established in the Highland village of the same name by David and Mary Challis in 1972: “The business comprised an outdoor pursuits centre alongside clothing manufacturing, much of which was carried out using the age-old system of piecework, whereby locals would sew in their own time at home.”

According to Mick Tighe of the Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection, there are two main reasons why there are very few TMC garments still in existence: “partly owing to low production numbers, but also because it was good and consequently used a lot.” In spite of its small scale, TMC was surprisingly innovative in its use of materials, although not necessarily by choice: according to a former employee, it was an early adopter of velcro, but only because it didn’t have a machine that could sew buttonholes.

The Tulloch Mountaincraft logo | Henry Iddon / Isola

Engagingly written, thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated, Mountain Style is an inspired piecing-together of a fascinating story. The only slight pity is that the authors chose to draw things to a close at the turn of the millennium. The influence of skiing style gets a mention or two here, but what about the impact of snowboard style since 2000? And what of trail running? Or mountain biking? Perhaps the authors felt that the narrative became too fragmented to make much sense of after 2000. Even if that’s the case though, it would still be fascinating to see them tackle the developments of the last quarter of a century.

Mountain Style, by Henry Iddon and Max Leonard, Isola, £45

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