Ford x Filson
The new Ford Bronco Filson is a 4×4 memory maker
My mother was a seamstress. Some of my earliest memories are of her sitting at her work station, pedal on the floor, intricate fingers dancing, setting stitches under the steady hum of her sowing machine. She was a virtuoso laying down the soundtrack of my childhood.
I thought about her this week while touring the Filson Factory in Seattle, where I had the honor of walking the production floor and watching the team at work at their sowing machines. Filson has been making some of the most durable gear for 130 years, outfitting pioneers and prospectors, loggers and wildland firefighters. Much of their enduring quality is owed to the uncompromising work of the people in that building.
We met a few of them who have been with the company for 30 or 40 years. We heard one story about a visitor like me who wore a limited-edition jacket he’d bought 25 years prior, and one of the seamstresses accosted him to check the stitches—they were hers. We visited the Restoration Department, where it’s not uncommon to receive a 75-year-old item passed down from someone’s grandfather.
Later that day, we traveled to Suncadia in the Cascades for a date with Ford, a company founded six years after Filson, in 1903. Here, too, we met employees who have been with the company for 35 years and who are in fact second-generation employees, which is common at Ford.
The reason for the gathering? The two brands came together to collaborate on a new edition of the iconic Bronco, billed as “Unfailing Goods meets Built Wild” in a vehicle designed to take you anywhere. I wrote about it for Acquire Magazine.
I think a lot about brands and how they communicate what they make and do, and I can’t think of a more appropriate combo given the two company’s longevity, commitment to quality, and passion for exploration. In large part, that’s owed to the teams behind Ford and Filson.
Are they just working on another product? Sowing another jacket or bag? Engineering another truck? Do they have any idea that the products they make are part of an enduring legacy? That their craftsmanship equips people like us to venture out and make memories with our families and friends?
I think they do. I think pride in that very outcome drives them. And I applaud them for the Bronco Filson, for setting another stitch in the fabric of American outdoor heritage.
For more on the Bronco Filson, visit https://www.filson.com/pages/filson-ford-bronco