On a recent visit, we witnessed the miracle first-hand, standing outside a small yurt in the Inner Mongolian grasslands. A herdsman named Ma Xi begins quickly, expertly clipping a goat’s coarser guard hairs. Then, with a rake-like instrument tipped with crochet hooks, he combs the goat’s coat. Soft underhair comes out easily, building up quickly on the long tines. The goat seems to enjoy it.

Combing takes about 20 minutes, after which Ma Xi slowly works the blanket of fleece off the tines and stacks it atop a dozen similar bundles. After the combing is done, these will be baled and trucked to the factory. But to us, this is always the most thrilling part of the process. Maybe because, coming from Dodgeville, we like goats?

Cashmere can come from many places – Turkey, Pakistan, New Zealand, even that organic farm down the road from you – but Mongolian “white cashmere” is considered the finest in the world.

Why is this true? Top-quality cashmere fibers are long, strong and fine. Kashmir goats raised elsewhere are often shorn rather than combed, which results in shorter fibers. Also, warmer climates discourage fleece growth. The cold, windy climate of Mongolia is perfect for producing the longest, loftiest fleece found anywhere.

Once at the factory, the goat fleece is cleaned, dyed, dried, mixed for color consistency and spun into yarn.

Special machinery has been installed for Lands’ End to double the single-ply yarn, since all Lands’ End cashmere is made from the heavier two-ply. This added heft is obvious when we handle several of the finished sweaters. Lands’ End sweaters are also more tightly knit than many on the market, which adds to their weight, softness and durability.

Look at a typical cashmere sweater purchased elsewhere and you’ll notice that it “shows through” under light, while our heftier sweater is opaque and blocks light. More important, it just feels nicer.

You may be the cynical type, and say, “It’s just a sweater…” But to us, as many years as we’ve been in the apparel business, it still feels like a miracle. What else can you say about remarkable goats that live in the harshest climate, yet grow the softest fleece? Or dedicated herdsmen who stay on guard through the longest, coldest nights to ward off the fox and the mountain
eagle?

Maybe most important of all, what other experience in the world of clothing can thrill like your first touch of cashmere?

So experience the miracle, Lands’ End style, and think of the unsung goats who brought it to you.

The post Once A Year, In The Springtime, There’s A Miracle In Mongolia. appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.

In this, our 50th year, his words are as true here as they ever were: Guaranteed. Period.® Because while styles come and go, unparalleled quality, value and service remain the principles that guide Lands’ End.

In celebration of our 50th year, The View from the Lighthouse brings you stories from the first half century of Lands’ End, and a look ahead to the next.

The post The First 50 Years: Delighting Customers appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.

Like our founder, Dick Ainsworth loves boats, adventure and creativity. And for 35 years, one of the very first products to bear the Lands’ End label – a bag made from surplus sailcloth – has been his constant companion.

In the summer of ’76, Dick Ainsworth walked into the Lands’ End® store on Elston Avenue in Chicago and saw something he hadn’t noticed before. Amongst the boat hardware and sailing supplies was a rack full of small, blue bags, each sporting a white zipper and label featuring a Lands’ End lighthouse logo — what sailors like Ainsworth call a “ditty bag” and landlubbers, less jauntily, a “toiletry bag.”

A creative director for an ad agency and an avid sailor, Ainsworth picked one up, noticing that it was made from the same nylon oxford fabric used to make sails and sail bags. It was the first item he remembers seeing in the Lands’ End store that wasn’t, strictly speaking, sailing equipment.

“So when are you getting the Bermuda shorts and T-shirts?” Ainsworth jokingly asked the store’s owner, Gary Comer, at the counter.

Since taking up sailing on Lake Michigan, Ainsworth had become one of Comer’s loyal customers. In fact, pretty much anyone in Chicago with a sailboat was, too.

According to Ainsworth, there were two types of customers in those days. The racing set sailed modern fiberglass and plastic-hulled yachts “like they were in the America’s Cup,” and depended on Comer for cutting-edge equipment and special paints that made hulls extra-sleek. “Gary was the Midwest distributor for everything you needed to make your boat go fast,” he recalls.

Ainsworth, however, was one of the more relaxed sailors. Preferring the simple pleasure of “getting there with some elegance” he owned a 30-foot, three-ton, wooden sailboat named the Sea Melody, built in 1934.

“It was a wonderful old boat. The vintage brass fit-tings were like jewelry,” he says.

Comer and Ainsworth saw eye to eye on the beauty and tradition of wooden boats.

“He had a love affair with old boats,” Ainsworth recalls, “We were the fun part of the business. I could depend on him to find any obscure part to keep my boat alive.”

Ainsworth’s annual summer voyage around the Great Lakes required plenty of other supplies from the Lands’ End store, ranging from a portable stove to bib overalls.

“We didn’t consider them clothing,” he says, “they were equipment. The coldest I’ve ever been was the middle of Lake Michigan in June.”

They also came in handy when the crew of the Sea Melody was invited to dinner by the commodore of a yacht club whose expensive vessel they rescued from disaster. When its propeller stuck as it reversed into the dock, Ainsworth and his first mate managed to pull it back out of harm’s way. Showing up at the clubhouse in their rugged sailing clothes, they knew there was only one way around the club’s “no blue jeans” dress code … and so they dined in the bright yellow overalls they had purchased from Lands’ End.

Although Comer distributed some high-end sailing attire, he hadn’t yet tried his hand at making and merchandising his own Lands’ End brand. The “ditty bag” Ainsworth picked up was a small, but significant, step towards a new beginning for Comer’s business.

“We’re going to experiment with our own product,” Comer told Ainsworth.

Shortly thereafter, Ainsworth took a new direction too and moved to Ridgeway, Wisconsin, not far, as it would eventually turn out, from our headquarters in Dodgeville.

When he moved north, Ainsworth traded the Sea Melody in for a vintage kayak.

“Boats like that you don’t own,” he says. “You’re just the caretaker and you pass it on to the next person.”

In the decades since his sailing days, Ainsworth has spent many a summer day kayaking around Door County—always the Lands’ End ditty bag is stowed away inside. He’s also found a new career as a photographer, and his work runs the gamut from artistic impressions of southwestern Wisconsin to a high-tech, 3D photography technique he pioneered. It’s a vocation that’s taken him around the country and overseas. Most recently he was in Saudi Arabia, capturing archaeological sites in 3D. Right there, packed away in his gear, was a little blue bag he bought in Chicago 35 years ago.

Ainsworth has remained a Lands’ End customer through the years, but although his wardrobe contains plenty of our shirts, outerwear and tees, it’s that little blue bag that reminds him why he keeps coming back. It’s one of the little things you use all the time but don’t notice or think about—and when you do, it brings back some of your favorite memories.

The post The First 50 Years: Our First Customer appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.

Christmas 1984. It would be the biggest Lands’ End catalog ever, a whopping 128 pages. A bit risky, in those days. How to make sure it got noticed, got opened, got shopped?

Bill Ferry had never been the most conventional of merchants. He liked to have fun. He liked Lands’ End customers to have fun. It was he who’d gotten the company involved with both the U.S. Boomerang Team and the U.S. Rugby Team – surprising partners, to say the least.

But what to do for Christmas? The usual brainstorming ensued. How about a nautical cover? Too predictable. Beautiful product cover? Yawn. Santa, reindeer, elves?  Too cornball.

Bill got to thinking about the store windows he’d seen at Harrod’s in London. What a beautiful job they did at Christmas.

“Then I thought of it,” Bill remembers. “The English taxi. A classic symbol of quality. I bounced the idea off Gary Comer and Bernie Roer, our creative director. They liked it. We were off!”

Bill contacted our English buying office, the British Isles Buying Agency. On his next trip to London, he looked over a small group of old English cabs, found one he liked, and bought it.

It was authentic in every detail. Austin diesel engine. Carbodies steel chassis. Right hand drive. Window separator. Jump seats. Even a working meter.

Like any London taxi, despite being incredibly roomy, it could turn in a tight 25-foot radius. Not on a dime, but close. Helpful on those crowded London streets.

Bill had another idea. Why not fill the taxi with $1000 worth of Lands’ End gifts? It would be the greatest gift wrapping ever.

It made a memorable Christmas cover, with Santa waving from the driver’s seat. But it was a bit pricey, at $20,000. We held our breath, waiting to see if anyone would buy it.

“The cab was purchased right away by a woman in Kansas,” says Bill. “In fact, we could have sold two more! And it really created a stir.”

The gifts were wrapped and put in the taxi, and delivered on Christmas Day by two Lands’ End warehouse employees.

End of story? Not quite. In 2005, our Kansas buyer contacted Lands’ End and expressed interest in returning the London taxi for a full refund. Of course we obliged – everything we sell is Guaranteed. Period. Returnable at any time, for any reason. Doesn’t matter if it’s an Oxford shirt or (ouch) a $20,000 London taxi.

Where’s the celebrated taxi now? It’s still in service here in Dodgeville, shuttling employees back and forth across our campus, and reminding all of us that the customer always comes first.

The post The First 50 Years: The London Cab appeared first on The Lands' End Blog.