Store Visit: Patagonia Palo Alto

photo from Yelp.com

Last week I was in the San Francisco Bay Area for a business trip and was able to run by the Patagonia Palo Alto store.  The stop was made all the more convenient since the Caltrain stop is just across the street from the store.

photo from Jun Seita's Flickr roll

I've probably been to this store 8 times since it opened and I'm telling you, the NICEST people work there.  Totally unpretentious, genuinely interested in helping, and knowledgeable about their products.  A few times ago, they also gave me a canvas "Patagonia Palo Alto" store book bag as a gift with purchase.  When you walk into some stores, you just want to turn around and leave because the merchandise is poorly displayed or the employees are cold and rude.  Not so at Patagonia PA.  They have a great selection of Patagonia gear and are eager to help you find anything that they don't have in store (even if they are sometimes unsuccessful, like the time a few years ago I was looking for the Down Jacket in black, size small--not to be found anywhere!). 

It's also conveniently located near Stanford University, so you can research some nuclear physics, then come by and get a Patagonia Nano Puff!  Plus University Avenue is the local drag just a street over, so it makes it easy to drop into one of my favorite shops, Palo Alto Bicycles. 

The next time you're around the Bay Area, pay the good folks at Patagonia Palo Alto a visit and tell them the Patagonia Community sent you!  (They'll probably look at you like, "What's the Patagonia Community?")

And for the record, no one is paying me to write this blog post--I'm just a fan (and you'll be one too after a visit!).

Christmas Packages Meet Patagonia

By the door and ready to be shipped.  Props to Patagonia Palo Alto!

Visit to the 30% Off Sale

Just a couple of quick things here.

• I stopped by the 30% off sale at Patagonia Palo Alto last week. I picked up a couple of t-shirts (which shrink a bit, by the way). I love the Patagonia designs. They're unique and kind of understated, which is a stark contrast to those Ed Hardy t-shirts making their rounds these days. They had some of the new fall items in and had probably half the store on sale. Looking forward to seeing what the end of summer sale brings.
• I just returned from a trip abroad while using my Patagonia Lightweight Travel Tote. I took that thing with me everywhere and it was such a great bag to have. I've now used it abroad in wintery weather and in the heat of the summer and that bag has some great features to it. I will be sharing my experiences with it soon.
  

30% Off Sale at Patagonia

I wandered in to the Palo Alto Patagonia store yesterday to find that they had a 30% off sale going on. It is also going on on the Patagonia.com website. Everyone at the store was very helpful as has always been the case. I picked up a froggy Live Simply t-shirt in yellow for $21 (pre-tax).
This 30% off sale is usually followed up fairly closely by a bigger sale (the Winterfest in the winter and a summer sale in the summer) where you can get discounts at more like 40-50%. But if you are impatient (like yours truly), you can go for the 30%. Remember though, we're in a recession!

A Patagonia Education, Part Three

Part three in a series: A Patagonia Education (photo from prolitegear.com). Last time I covered lessons number two to four.

Lesson Number Five
The Patagonia Down Sweater just, um..., isn't for me. The next item in my fitting room was the Down Sweater in black, again in size small. At 30% off, this jacket was $140, about as good a price as one is going find for this basic piece that Patagonia always carries. I liked the fit and feel a lot. This is a very light weight piece. When you think of classic down jackets, they are packed with feathers and bulky. This one's pared down and, forgive the play on words, light as a feather. The shell feels very thin and I read a review on Backcountry.com that mentions some tearing that the reviewer experienced.

I really liked this jacket, but I didn't buy it for one reason: I thought it looked feminine on me. Now I know the psychoanalysts out there will start accusing me of repressing thoughts, having crushes on my father, etc. But it just looks like a woman's jacket when you put it on! The bigger beefier down jackets look a bit more rugged. It's not all about how a jacket looks, but that does count for something. I think it's the narrower quilting lines that make it look like it was made for my wife. I don't know--it just wasn't for me.

Lesson Number Six
The Patagonia Storm Jacket has a really baggy fit in the upper body. This was one of the final jackets I tried on. It has a tough-feeling exterior fabric and it seemed like it would hold up well in a rough-and-tumble back country environment. When I put it on though, it seemed like I could fit a little person inside the underarm area. The jacket was really nice except for that fact. It's to accommodate layers, I'm sure, but just what exactly will someone be using as a layer? A living, whole goat? (Photo from paragonsports.com)

Lesson Number Seven
The Patagonia Eco Rain Shell is a nice, civilized basic rain jacket. This is the much (and rightfully so) bally-hooed first fully recycled and recycleable jacket that Patagonia produced a couple of years ago.
It has very simple styling and could work as a rain coat that one would wear to the office. The hood is comfortable (though no drawstring) and detachable and the jacket is lightweight. The mesh lining makes it easy to get on and off and there you go--very straightforward features.

My issue with it was that it was too straightforward. Where's the two-way zipper that versions of the Eco Rain Shell available as recent as 2007 had (according to my old issues of the Patagonia catalog). That would be a helpful touch as the jacket is rather slim fitting. So the bottom hem could use the extra give that a two-way zipper would afford. I actually liked the slimmer fit, but if someone plans to layer, they'd be in trouble unless it was a very thin layer. I tried a hoodless softshell and it was too much. My down vest was way too much. So if you're going to wear it alone, you're golden. (photo from hanon-shop.com)

One thing I didn't get: why do the pocket zippers rest at the bottom of the zip when the pockets are closed? The picture illustrates this. See the Napoleon chest pocket? The pocket is closed and the zipper pull hangs down, as do the handwarmer pocket zippers. Seems to me that if the pockets closed with the zipper at the top of the pocket, gravity could do its thing and virtually hide the zipper pulls rather than forcing them to look like you have a piece of black licorice hanging out of your pocket.

Lesson Number Eight
The Patagonia Down Jacket is still one of the finest pieces around. True, they didn't have it in my size in black. But I did try on a navy blue one in my size and that thing was nice. The right weight, the right feel, the right warmth--just really solid. Keeping my eye out for a small in black.

So there it is, my Patagonia Education. The Patagonia Palo Alto store was beautiful and the employees very helpful and kind. Looking forward to furthering my education sometime soon.

A Patagonia Education, Continued

The second part in a series on my Patagonia Education.

Lesson Number Two
In this instance, the store had more sizes available during a sale than the website did. On the website a lot of the stuff I was interested in was not available in my size, small. The store had smalls in many things including the Men's Rubicon Rider Jacket in black (more about that in the next lesson) which seems sold out in size small across the world wide web. The only item I couldn't find in small--and the sales woman checked the computer and said there isn't one to be found anywhere in the system--was the Patagonia Down Jacket in black, no doubt a popular item.

The rest of my education came in the fit of the garments. These items I had seen in the catalogs were now on my body and I was able to get a better sense of their fit and feel. I have to preface this by saying that I am basically a "perfect" size small (if there is such a thing--every guy under 5'10" probably views his height as pretty "imperfect", but you get what I mean) in Patagonia gear, and in pretty much every other brand for that matter. I've had the Patagonia Dimension Jacket, the Down Vest, a Shelled Synchilla, a Marsupial, etc. So that's the premise I'm working from--a small should fit me just fine.

Lesson Number Three
The Rubicon Rider Jacket has really long arms. First of all, I felt like I had scored a coup by finding this in black, size small. As I said, I haven't seen that anywhere on the internet, so I was quite eager to try this one on and possibly make a purchase. Immediately after putting it on, I found that it was very warm and the fabric has a great feel to it. The reinforcements on the shoulders feel tough, like they would stand up so some scrapes. I liked the removable hood too. But what was up with the arms? They were a solid two inches too long. Take a look at this picture I found on the internet that demonstrates my point perfectly:

(Photo from kakaku.com)

The sleeves are almost down to his fingernails and they're STILL bunched up at his wrists. Folks at Patagonia design: this is a great jacket, but please fix the sleeve length! I get that the jacket is supposed to have a relaxed fit and it does. But it shouldn't have a relaxed fit designed for a gorilla. Back to the rack you go, you rarest of finds. May some primate find you useful.

Lesson Number Four
The Patagonia Quilt Again Jacket is really tight. No, not slang "tight" as in "cool" but "tight" as in "restricting"! Again, size small ought to fit me fine. And again, I felt like I had scored because this is a very popular jacket and the website didn't have this blue one in small. Ah, but the fit--I had a hard time even getting my arms through the sleeves. Though I'd like to think it's because my arm muscles are so ripped, the facts tell me that the sleeves are just cut too slim. Mind you, I was only wearing a t-shirt and a thin cotton shirt over that--nothing excessive. Here's the kicker, I later checked out the Patagonia website and they label the jacket "Regular Fit." Just not true.

More Patagonia lessons to come this weekend.

A Patagonia Education, Part One

Last Friday the 16th, I sat down to write a new entry for the Patagonia Community. Here's how it started (thanks to the hard-working people at Blogger who make sure that drafts are auto-saved):

I've noticed that when I walk into a Patagonia retail store, I'll rarely ever find anything on sale. I know they have their sales a couple of times a year, but outside of those times, the Patagonia retail stores are havens for full-priced items. I'm going to be heading to one of the Patagonia stores this weekend and am looking for evidence to dissuade me. I'm guessing I won't find much. Nevertheless, I enjoy the Patagonia stores because I get a chance to get up-close and personal with their newer gear and I've always found the sales people to be quite helpful.

So the part about their sales people being helpful remains true, but I was so wrong about the first part. Shortly after I typed the paragraph above, I visited Patagonia.com and to my amazement, found that they had begun a 30% Off Sale. I then went to their store locations page and checked in on the Palo Alto store which was where I was headed last Sunday. I was pleased and surprised to read that the store was also participating. Therefore, lesson number one in my Patagonia education was that sometimes they do have sales out of the blue (though the downturn in the economy no doubt spurred the creation of this sale on; wouldn't expect this in "normal" years).

Usually the Patagonia Winterfest Sale is only a few weeks from this time of year, so to have a 30% Off Sale in mid-January seemed strange, but was welcome. I browsed through the website and found some pretty good deals though I didn't make any purchases. On Sunday I was off to Patagonia Palo Alto where I've visited a couple of times before. Here's a shot I took from Alma Street:
The rest of my Patagonia education last weekend took place within this store. My first clue was the print on the window:
The "30% Off" sign applied to everything in the store (with the exception of books and things like that). The website had some things on sale, and some for full price. Not so at the store. To verify, I asked one of those helpful sales people who reassured me that I wasn't going crazy.

When it actually came time to try on some items, the real education started. I've been a fan of Patagonia clothing and gear for the last 10 years or so, yet much of my admiration has come from reading about their company or perusing their well-produced catalogs. On this day I would be able to try some items on with the intention of purchasing. I grabbed several items and headed to the fitting room and that's where the real education in Patagonia began.

I'm going to post the second part of my Patagonia education this Wednesday. Stay tuned.

Palo Alto Patagonia

Paid a visit to the Palo Alto Patagonia store Wednesday. I got there about 45 minutes before closing on a dreary, rainy day. The store is on Alma Street which is a pretty busy narrow street (had to wait to open my car door lest an approaching automobile convert my 4-door car to a 3-door car) just off University Avenue which leads into Stanford University. It's a great looking store that stretches pretty deep behind a fairly narrow store front.

It was the second to last day of the Winterfest Sale and I found that they had some gear that had long since sold out on the website like the old version of the MLC bag and some printed t-shirts. They also had a good amount of winter stuff like the Down Vest, Rubicon Puff, and so on. I liked the look and feel of the store and while I didn't come out with anything (still waiting for the new Critical Mass to come in and the Stretch Latitude jacket to go on sale), I did encounter some warm employees and a catalog (for some reason I never got the Heart of Winter catalog in the mail).

The buddy I was with was pretty shocked by Patagonia's prices and we had a good discussion about the environmental causes Patagonia supports and the R & D that goes into the products. He was convinced though that the bottom line was that Patagonia was out to make money and frankly, I couldn't refute that--what business isn't? However, without knowing much about the company, it's easy for people to look at the price tag and just see it as a rip-off.