KÜHL is an apparel brand founded in Utah in 1986. It is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the late summer of 1989, by KÜHL's own account, the company consisted of eight or nine plastic bags of ski hats. It had just lost its two biggest accounts. In 2015 the Salt Lake City company Kevin Boyle built out of them sold more than a million pairs of pants.
Boyle drove west from Pennsylvania in 1982 to ski. After he lost a job at Alta, he and a friend lived in a snow cave, warming their sleeping bags in Peruvian Lodge laundry dryers first. In 1986 he and his brother Jay bought into John "Alf" Engwall's fleece hat business, Alfwear, with the climber Conrad Anker. Engwall died in a car accident soon after.
Anker left to climb professionally and Jay went to graduate school. Kevin designed a 1990 fleece jacket with thumb-loop cuffs and renamed the company KÜHL, German for cool. When a would-be buyer told Boyle to name his price, he said not at any price. KÜHL's own site fields a common question, why nothing goes on sale, and answers that it won't overproduce.
In 2016, lunch at headquarters was cooked daily by a chef Boyle met on a chairlift, which beats the snow cave.
KÜHL's CEO in 2016, Nate Fay, had started in the company's shipping department when he was 16.
KÜHL has been one of my favorite brands for years. The Crossfire is clean enough that I wear it to meetings.
Alex
New from KÜHL
First East Coast store opens on Newbury Street in Boston
KÜHL opened its sixth US store at 343 Newbury Street in Boston, its first on the East Coast. The grand opening ran June 12 to 14.
