A Necktie from the Top of the World
Would you buy a $400 tie—if it's been to the top of Everest?
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Everest has long been the world’s biggest marketing tool. From cereal giant Post, which still proudly claims that Grape-Nuts fueled Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first ascent of the mountain, to Kobold’s controversial wristwatch that contains actual pieces of rock taken from near Everest’s summit, companies can’t resist the allure to align their brands with the Himalayan giant.
Now comes a company called Young & Brash, which is marketing $400 limited-edition neckties onto which it’s stitched a diagonal swatch of a red Eddie Bauer First Ascent down suit that’s been worn to the mountain’s summit. “I wanted to create something that only a few people could have and even less could afford,” wrote the company’s founder, Micah Dyer, in a press release.
Alpinists and Everestphiles will recognize that the smiling mountaineer pictured on Young & Brash’s site is David Morton, a highly respected mountain guide and photographer who has reached the summit of Everest six times. Morton gave Young & Brash one of his old suits in exchange for a $1,000 donation to the Juniper Fund, the organization he and and fellow alpinist Melissa Arnot founded a few years ago to to provide support to individuals and families left behind after mountaineering accidents on Everest. That’s the extent of Morton’s involvement with the company, although Dyer did inform us that, after further discussions with Morton, he’s decided to donate a percentage of the tie proceeds to the Juniper Fund.
That’s unquestionably a good call, but we’re not sure it’s enough to make us want to buy one. But, hey, if you want to pay $400 for a tie, go for it.
$400, youngbrash.com