A few pairs of hand-baked gas station gloves at a trade show somehow turned us into full-fledged glovemakers.
Flylow never set out to be a glove company. That was not part of the initial business plan. (Which was sketched on a napkin behind a bar.) When Flylow was just getting started, the small staff (read: the two founders and whatever friends they could rope in to help) would show up at trade shows like Outdoor Retailer or SIA with a single rack of burly ski pants and jackets and a bar their buddy built. Buyers from retailers and outdoor-industry media would walk by without a glance. Just another fledgling startup, they’d assume.
"We couldn’t get any buyers or media to come by our booth at trade shows,” says Flylow cofounder Dan Abrams. So, he and Greg Steen, Flylow cofounder, had an idea to lure people in: What if they made a swag item to give out at trade shows that would be enticing to hardy skiers like themselves?
Their crew of skier friends were already wearing simple leather gloves they’d bought at the Maverick gas station south of Jackson, Wyoming, and treated with Sno Seal bee’s wax for waterproofing—a trick they’d learned in college, while studying in the wet Pacific Northwest—so they figured others might appreciate that, too. “I couldn’t afford a $130 pair of gloves, so I was like, you can just buy cheap gloves and waterproof them yourself? I did that for years,” says Steen.
Steen and Abrams sourced insulated pigskin leather gloves with the perfect knit wrist, then baked them in a home oven to warm them up, applied bee’s wax by hand two times, and baked them again to lock in the treatment. Each pair of gloves was treated twice and triple baked. They bought a cattle brand from a rancher in Wyoming to singe the Flylow logo into the leather.
$30 Cost of first Flylow Tough Guy Glove
20 Ovens purchased off Craig’s List to bake gloves
18 Gloves in the current Flylow line
The result was salt-of-the-earth ski gloves: built tough and functional, not fancy. They were the same style of gloves used by mountain guides, ski patrollers, and lift maintenance crews, but unlike those, they didn’t require any at-home waterproof treatment, which took time, effort, and made your kitchen smell like fumes. The duo started giving gloves out at trade shows to anyone who’d stop by. Soon, word got out and buyers from ski shops started placing orders for wax-treated gloves. (Fortunately, they also started placing orders for the jackets and pants, too.)
With actual orders coming in, Steen and Abrams had to up their glove game. They bought old ovens on Craig’s List (which they nicknamed, naturally, “glovens”), plugged them in via heavy-duty extension cords in the backyard of Abrams’ house in south Denver, Colorado, and recruited friends to help bake gloves.
They posted notices on ski forum websites asking for people interested in baking gloves in trade for gear. “I was in between jobs and was happy to have something to do to keep my hands busy during the day,” says Allan Cheateaux, a Colorado-based skier and firefighter who was one of Flylow’s early and most dedicated glove bakers. He estimates he treated around 5,000 gloves by hand. “I would stand by the oven in the backyard, baking gloves, with one hand in a pot of wax, asking myself questions like, who am I and what do I want to be? It was soul searching.”
The beauty of these early Flylow gloves is they were tough, made from waterproof leather, and they didn’t cost more than a large pizza.
Flylow was suddenly churning out thousands of gloves, all treated by hand. The first glove, in fall of 2008, was called the Tough Guy Glove—it had canvas backing and a classic look. The all-leather Ridge Glove and Oven Mitt came next. Eventually, when Flylow opened a warehouse in Denver in 2010, a corner of the space was dedicated to glove baking. During the busy pre-winter prep season, a crew of seasonal glove bakers was hired to help meet demands.
The beauty of these early Flylow gloves is they were tough, made from waterproof leather, and they didn’t cost more than a large pizza. “Enough other glove companies were making $200 leather gloves,” Abrams says. “So, we made a $30 glove that you could wear for years and get as dirty as you want.”
The Tough Guy Gloves, Oven Mittens, and Ridge Gloves still exist in the Flylow line, but the collection has expanded significantly since the early days to include spring gloves, gauntlet gloves, kids’ mitts, and more. But guess what glove Allan Cheateaux is still wearing? The original prototype of the Ridge Glove, a 16-year-old glove that’s broken in with a tanned patina from bee’s wax reapplications. It fits him like a worn-in slipper.
Tip: Add Waterproof Treatment To Your Gloves At Home
The pre-bake is key. Heat the oven to 165, or as low as it’ll go. (Any hotter and it’ll melt the plastic clips). Warm the gloves first to open the pores. Then slather them all over with Sno Seal bee’s wax treatment (sold at most hardware stores). Back into the oven for a few minutes. On the second treatment of the wax, focus on the palms and the seams. Put them back into the oven until they look dry.
This story appears in our new coffee table book, "Homegrown: Celebrating Flylow's Independent culture and grassroots vibe since 2005," which is on sale now.
Gant de cuisine
Gant pour remonte-pente
Moufle avec corde de traction
Gant Maine Line
