Toad & Co. Puts Style in Outdoor Apparel

Though the “factory floor” is where the 40 Santa Barbara–based employees of Toad & Co. pluck away at keyboards — including CEO Gordon Seabury — the soul of their office on the Riviera Park campus is in a much smaller room. There, past the wire cage wall of the sales showroom and stocked fridges of the communal kitchen, countless swatches of new and old flannel, corduroy, cotton, wool, and all imaginable textiles hang on facing walls from floor to ceiling. This is the 25-year-old outdoor apparel company’s fabric library, where designers return regularly to research what types of textiles exist and then plot the combinations that should.

“We look at how different types of fabrics work together to create something better,” Marketing Manager Steve McCann explained to me during a tour last week. “Say we like wool for moisture wicking and heat resistance, but we like the feel of cotton. How do we bridge that gap? We’ll work with different manufacturers to see who can do that. That’s a huge part of what we’re doing with fabrics.”

Functionality is a must for all apparel companies, but Toad & Co. reverses the traditional model, prioritizing feel and looks and then determining how to make it work. “For us, number one is comfort,” said McCann, explaining that the company employs the JET — as in “just enough technology” — mantra. “The majority of people aren’t tackling Mt. Everest,” he said of the form/function balance they seek, “but they might be hiking up Jesusita.”