Vintage Safari Outfitters Catalogues

Willis & Geiger  and  Banana Republic

With the announcement of a new Indiana Jones movie, the fans of rugged safari clothing will be delighted to see a renaissance of good old vintage fashion and colonial style. In order to evaluate today’s so-called safari fashion against the classical style, worn by Clark Gable, Stewart Granger and Indy, one simply has to take a look into the old catalogues.

Nowadays these catalogues are much sought after collector’s items, rarely to be found and – off course – astronomically expensive.

In order to allow you to get hold of a reference work – without having to pay an arm and a leg – here comes a CD with digitalized catalogues of the foremost safari outfitter of day, long bygone:  “Willis & Geiger“ and “Banana Republic“.

Willis & Geiger Outfitters was an expeditionary outfitting company in the United States. In 1902 Ben Willis developed clothing for his Arctic explorations and founded Willis & Geiger Outfitters. Roald Amundsen, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Jacqueline Cochran, Sir Edmund Hillary, the Flying Tigers and other legends of the 20th century. Abercrombie & Fitch outfitted Teddy Roosevelt with clothing designed by founder Benjamin Willis. In 1936 Ernest Hemingway designed his own bush jacket made by Willis & Geiger Outfitters. A version of the Navy G-1 was made under contract during World War II, designed by Eddie Bauer. The company was sold in 1980 to Lands' End, and was unfortunately liquidated in 1999.

The original Banana Republic was founded by Mel and Patricia Ziegler in 1978. The couple were known for acquiring interesting clothing items that their travel-related jobs brought them in contact with. They eventually opened a store in the Mill Valley area of Northern California. They were known for a hand-drawn catalogue of items with fictional traveler/explorer stories printed alongside, and their safari-themed retail locations.

Gap Inc. acquired Banana Republic in 1983, eventually rebranding it as a mainstream luxury clothing retailer. The literate articles, hand-drawn catalog, and eccentric tourist-oriented items were phased out and were replaced with more luxurious, but not unique, items for which the brand is currently known (as of 2012).

What are you bidding on?

You are bidding on a CD, containing high-quality photographs of three Willis & Geiger Catalogue books (issues 18, 22 and 26) as well as 24 catalogues of Banana Republic. You can page them through at your leisure on your computer of TV-screen, zoom in on details or print out the relevant pages.

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