S
Sylvaneous
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2006
- Messages
- 922
Being the son of an outdoor family of modest means, I started out seeing Orvis as too expensive and ridiculously ostentatious. Plus they poo-pooed the up-and-coming new generation fishing companies like Sage back in the mid-late 80's. BUT; a little comparison is in order. As noted, so many great old sporting companies have gone away. Others, like Abercrombie and Fitch have been so adulterated that the spirits of the original proprietors have to be haunting the board meetings.
I have seen that going cheap ruins companies. If they begin to compete at all in that forum, they loose, like being a little pregnant. It doesn't work. Orvis has a lot of image credibility banked-up over the decades. They could have cashed-in and cashed-out, but they didn't. Like C.C. Filson, they stayed true to their origins. They DO cash in on their sporting heritage with dog beds and $70 plaid shirts, but the shirts are good and you can wait for a sale after Christmas. And they plow some of that money back into fly rod development, and other fly fishing stuff too. Orvis seems to have become more competitive in the fly fishing market, so I'd say they're solidly committed to keeping the sport a major part of their business. The company and the stores don't seem to possess the hoity-toity attitude that they banked on in the past.
I have seen that going cheap ruins companies. If they begin to compete at all in that forum, they loose, like being a little pregnant. It doesn't work. Orvis has a lot of image credibility banked-up over the decades. They could have cashed-in and cashed-out, but they didn't. Like C.C. Filson, they stayed true to their origins. They DO cash in on their sporting heritage with dog beds and $70 plaid shirts, but the shirts are good and you can wait for a sale after Christmas. And they plow some of that money back into fly rod development, and other fly fishing stuff too. Orvis seems to have become more competitive in the fly fishing market, so I'd say they're solidly committed to keeping the sport a major part of their business. The company and the stores don't seem to possess the hoity-toity attitude that they banked on in the past.
