Soapbox

Now I understand.

Berghaus have cottoned on to the fact that their brand is worn with honour by neds and chavs up and down the country.

So they've designed a range of clothing especially for them, hoping to wean them off the Mera Peak.

"The customer, says Berghaus, is probably an urban dweller aged from 25-35 who plays hard at the weekend and wants kit that performs well, but also looks good at the same time and is 'ultra brand conscious'."

Transformed from marketing speak:

"The customer, says Berghaus, is probably a street urchin with an ASBO, aged from 14-21 who hangs around on street corners, and wants kit that is easy to steal, conceals their identity, but also looks good at the same time and is 'ultra brand conscious'."

"It's <insert current vernacular word for 'cool'> innit?"

lol

another brand to avoid

I don't think it seems that bad, looks pretty similar to the Quicksilver/O'Neil kinda fashion/outdoors brands that use technically decent designs that can be worn on the street. Berghaus is still a decent outdoors brand, they make some good kit. I saw a homeless bloke wearing a Patagonia snap-T once, does this mean Patagonia no longer deserve respect as a brand?

I think some of the old guys on here are just upset that they'd feel silly wearing perfectly functional but nice looking clothes just because they are designed for "young" people. Instead they choose old man "cool" brands like Paramo which may be perfectly functional but is far too ugly to ever become popular on the street.

quite right ben, wait six months and you'll be able to pick it all up at huge discount, or sooner after the shoplifters have ebayed it.

at least with paramo you have that "timeless" look - it's always looked unfashionable and hopefully always will.

i gave up worrying about what i look like in clothes years ago - it was called poverty.

It's a bit of a Friday Thread, Ben; not to be taken too seriously. I just get the hump at marketing speak, that's all...

But I defy you not to admit that the 'constrasting zips' on the downies give them a very 70's look. The designers must have been looking at pictures of Bonners' Everest expeditions...

BTW, the tramps around my way wear ME.

Wicked!!! New bling gear for me to get down with me homies in!!!

"We were prepared to be all hard-bitten and cynical, but first impressions are that the kit really does look rather nice." No you weren't! No it doesn't! Was the Berghaus corporate hospitality really that good then?

The nearest this stuff will get to the outdoors is street corners, while the ned wearing it harrases passers by and makes obscure hand gestures. The nearest it will get to me is when the person wearing it mugs me.

"We like this one too.... Quite simple, but complete with a hood, which should make it very useable." Aye, for avoiding the CCTV. What next - Scarpa Heelys?

Contrary to the paramo being uncool comment, I had a bizarre moment in Stuart Sports in Windermere over new year...

A guy clad in full goretex xcr mountain gear in the shop was being given the paramo spiel by a salesman, and I saw the salesman point to me in my velez and jeans. At which point mountain man muttered 'yeah but he's just wearing it because it looks cool...'. I dont know who was more surprised, me or the salesman!!

Paramo = Cool? Brilliantttt!!! My street cred is leaping up.

Did anyone living in the Granada TV region of north west England see North West Tonight a couple of days ago? They're doing a week-long feature on what it's like to be a teenager. Anyway, they had this 'goth' teenager walking around Liverpool, describing the different types of 'teen culture', and interviewing kids of each culture.

Most of the kids were alright, but then he got to a group of scallies... They started giving this goth kid hassle because of the way he looked. Scally number one (an obnoxious little shit, to be honest) started saying about how the goth's clothes were crap because he (the scally) didn't know what brand they were.

"Look at us", said the scally, proudly indicating himself and fellow scallies, "we're all wearing Nike, Fred Perry, North Face, Berghaus and Lowe Alpine".

At that point I cringed, and had to stop myself running upstairs to destroy all my outdoor gear...

And it's not just TNF, BH and LA... I saw a gang of scallies in Preston today, and 3 of them had Mountain Equipment tops, and two had Mountain Equipment 'headbands'... all in black, of course.

I'm waiting for the new 2007 Ronhills to come out... here's hoping for flares in brown and orange.

I saw that Michael, I was a bit surprised when the gobby little fat scouse kid referred to Lowe Alpine - I mean, since when has LA been trendy?

I've tended to avoid Berghaus just for the inverted snobbery factor that everyone wears it; from walking the dog to grooving with the cats (my terminology may be a tad out of date), Berghaus is the brand. So how sick was I when a spotted yummy mummy get out of top-end 4x4 - in stilleto boots and shiny, never-seen-a-rucksack, Rab Neutrino. Like it's just soooo cosy, yah?

It's rubbish. It looks like Space1999 uniforms.
The people who will be responsible for inflicting these upon us, the big chain store buyers in their slightly too short stone washed denims whose idea of 'technical' is something with more than two pockets, will lap it up and imagine the kids streaming in the doors to buy them.


I quite like that fleece hoody at the end though.

In fact, Berghaus, the buyers, that new gear (apart from that hoody, 1XsizeL), the crates of unsold 'Big Wall' kit and Ricardo Montalban should all be sent to celebrity love island.
Ricardo will rule them and make them pay for their crimes by forcing them up and down palm trees in Solipsist jackets, filling haul bags with coconuts as they go.
Only when they have designed something useful, the buyers admit that they really don't have a clue about anything other than names and figures on a spreadsheet and should never have been allowed near outdoors equipment and they are all very, very sorry, will they be allowed off the island to take up new positions of little import at various convenience outlets nationwide.

Fat chance.

I'm just waiting for the chavs in Ashington (incidentally where Montane is based) to start wearing the new BH kit.

14 year old girls with giant gypsy earrings, hair pulled back into a pony tails so tight it makes their eyes look like cats eyes, so much make-up on that if they turned round too fast their faces would end up on the back of their heads and the latest Berghaus £350 piece of crap.

And I just know that they would think Montane would be crap, especially because it comes from their home town.

And if it's not BH, it's TOG 24??????!!!!!

These attitudes are all just so foreign to me. In Cambridge, Berghaus is NEVER a chav brand. TNF maybe a little, but otherwise outdoor gear still has all its outdoor cred.

Surely all you need for the outdoors in Cambridge is Pacamac? ;-)