Explore or protect: the ecological dilemma of the couple who created The North Face

BarcelonaDouglas Tompkins often kayaked on General Carrera Lake, straddling Argentina and Chile in Patagonia. Although born in Ohio, USA, this place had become his home. He had arrived decades ago to explore it and stayed to protect it. Tompkins was a businessman with a passion for nature who, in 1968, along with his wife, Susie Tompkins, had founded The North Face, the brand specializing in mountaineering equipment. For many years, he had dedicated a significant portion of his fortune to purchasing ecologically valuable lands and restoring them to nature. The goal was to legally protect them from future degradation by human activity. He acquired, restored, protected, and ultimately ceded these areas to be transformed into national parks.

However, on December 8, 2015, everything changed. While paddling on the lake, the sky clouded over and the wind suddenly picked up. Within minutes, the kayak capsized. Tompkins survived the icy water for over an hour, but died of hypothermia. Today, the brand is part of the VF Corporation portfolio, a giant that manages it along with Vans and generates over €8 billion in annual revenue worldwide. But how did the Tompkins couple manage to make the company a success?

A small shop

In the late 1960s, Douglas and Susie Tompkins were swept up in the exploration culture that prevailed in California. It was a time when climbing, hiking, and the outdoors were becoming increasingly mainstream. In 1966, they founded The North Face with a very specific ambition: to offer functional, durable, and honest gear for people who wanted to venture into nature. The brand was born from direct experience of the terrain and the need to solve real problems such as cold, weight, durability, and protection.

The project began as a small shop in the North Bay of San Francisco, far from the financial district and much closer to the mountains that obsessed the couple. That space quickly became a meeting point for climbers, hikers, and adventurers returning from Yosemite. It wasn't just a place to buy gear, but a space where experiences, routes, and ways of understanding the mountains were shared. "Necessity must come before luxury," the Tompkinses advised in the letter that opened the brand's first catalog.

The sale of the business

However, Douglas Tompkins' entrepreneurial venture was short-lived. Just a few years after launching it, he decided to sell The North Face and disassociate himself from it. The brand was beginning to grow, to structure itself as a business, and he already sensed a discomfort that would accompany him throughout his life: commercial expansion came at a price, and it wasn't always compatible with the demanding and respectful relationship with nature that he championed.

Specifically, he divested himself of the business in 1967, just one year after opening his first store. Tompkins sold his stake to Kenneth Hap Klopp for $50,000, who then took over its management. While the founder left for Patagonia to climb Mount Fitz Roy and begin a new chapter in his life away from the business, The North Face embarked on a path of expansion from which there was no turning back.

The brand grew as a company specializing in outdoor equipment. Year after year, it expanded its catalog and professionalized its structure until it ceased to be a brand exclusively for climbers and mountaineers, becoming a global leader in the outdoor sports sector. By the late 1990s and especially from the 2000s onward, The North Face had fully entered the world of mass consumption and urban aesthetics. In 2000, the brand was acquired by VF Corporation for $25.4 million.

Outside of The North Face, Douglas Tompkins co-founded Esprit, a fashion brand that enjoyed considerable international success for years. But he eventually distanced himself from that as well. Tompkins began to question the role of the fashion industry and its environmental impact, deciding to definitively orient his life towards other forms of adventure, such as filmmaking, and above all, towards environmental conservation.