Eddie Bauer’s North American store operator is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that could shutter nearly 200 locations across the United States and Canada, according to published reports, effectively dismantling the outdoor retailer’s brick-and-mortar footprint in North America.
The scale of the closures has prompted renewed scrutiny of the company’s recent brand direction, as critics point to years of explicitly political and identity-focused messaging that they say marked a sharp departure from the company’s traditional product-driven image. Executives and statements by the company for years deployed left-wing tropes about white mediocrity, “cisgender,” and “ableism.” The company went all in on the Black Lives Matter fad in 2020.
From outdoor outfitter to wartime supplier
Eddie Bauer was founded in 1920 as a Seattle sporting-goods shop built around founder Eddie Bauer’s outdoor innovations. After surviving a near-fatal hypothermia incident, Bauer developed quilted down outerwear and patented the Skyliner jacket, widely credited as the first patented quilted goose-down jacket in the United States.
During World War II, Bauer’s technical expertise led to a commission from the U.S. Army Air Corps to develop insulated flight gear, including the B-9 Flight Parka. The wartime contract cemented the company’s reputation as a performance outfitter rooted in engineering, durability, and functional design.
Eddie Bauer’s difficulties unfolded during a period of continued growth in outdoor recreation. The Outdoor Industry Association reported a record 175.8 million outdoor recreation participants—57.3 percent of Americans age six and older—based on the Outdoor Foundation’s participation survey.
Federal data also show the outdoor recreation economy remains a meaningful slice of U.S. activity. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated outdoor recreation generated $1.2 trillion in economic output in 2023 and supported 5 million jobs, with inflation-adjusted GDP for the sector rising 3.6 percent in 2023 versus 2.9 percent for the overall economy.
Competitors have continued investing in physical retail. REI said it aimed to open 10 stores in 2024, and later outlined a smaller slate of new openings for 2025.
The timing underscores the self-inflicted wounds responsible for Eddie Bauer’s collapse: the company’s store fleet is shrinking sharply even as outdoor participation and the overall outdoor-economy footprint remain elevated.
A public embrace of far-left activism
In 2020, amid nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd, Eddie Bauer President Damien Huang issued a public statement declaring: “Because BLACK LIVES MATTER – full stop… As President of Eddie Bauer, I want to use my position and the platform we have to amplify this important message.”
Huang added that he was speaking both personally and “on behalf of Eddie Bauer,” and outlined donations and internal initiatives tied to so-called diversity and the left-wing ideology that calls itself “anti-racism” while embracing racist attitudes towards whites.
Subsequent company content adopted the language of left-wing identity and representation in describing outdoor participation. A 2022 Eddie Bauer blog post on “allyship” argued that the traditional image of “outdoorsy” has often centered people who are “white, cisgender, heterosexual,” and concluded that “representation is an invitation.”
Another Eddie Bauer post framed participation through identity categories, stating: “Someone who is white, cisgender, heterosexual, thin and able-bodied has more freedom to be mediocre.”
The same post argued that ideas about fitness and “ability” are shaped by “diet culture” and “ableism,” describing those concepts as social systems that assign status and privilege.
The retailer also introduced gender-neutral shopping categories labeled “All Unisex,” marketing apparel as inclusive fashion intended for use by those rejecting biological sex.
Leadership signaling and identity-based programs
Huang later appeared in an outdoor-industry inclusion profile listing Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning among his recommended reading. Kendi is one of the central figures in the corporate version of critical race theory. He rejects the idea that people can be “not racist,” arguing that the only alternative to racism is left-wing “antiracism” that embraces discrimination against whites. Colorblindness, Kendi claims, is itself a form of racism.
Eddie Bauer also built identity criteria into at least one branded initiative. Its “One Outside Film Grant” program initially limited eligibility to filmmakers identifying as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. Later iterations promoted grants aimed at filmmakers identifying as part of the “LGBTQ community, “according to program materials and coverage. Many Americans regard this kind of discrimination and exclusivity as morally wrong and probably illegal under civil rights statutes.
As news of the impending store closures spread, critics quickly framed Eddie Bauer’s retrenchment within the broader “go woke, go broke” narrative—shorthand for the claim that brands risk alienating customers when they adopt politically charged messaging.
This embrace of critical race theory and radical gender politics was not enough to keep the company afloat. So a company built on technical outdoor innovation and wartime engineering now faces a near-total retail shutdown after years of publicly aligning itself with identity-focused social campaigns.
The expected Chapter 11 filing involves the entity operating Eddie Bauer’s North American store fleet. Reports have described other segments of the business—including manufacturing, wholesale, e-commerce, and international operations—as structured separately, even as the store closures would represent the brand’s most visible contraction in decades.
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