As the oldest outdoor wear manufacturer in the whole of the USA, Woolrich has an unrivaled legacy in creating rugged clothing perfect for the outdoors. John Rich, co-founder emigrated from Liverpool, England, to the USA in the early 1800s, and after moving to Pennsylvania, he would meet Daniel McCormick. Using his knowledge, John Rich and Daniel McCormick founded Woolrich Inc. in 1830. And although this began as a joint venture for them two, John Rich would buy Daniel McCormick out of the business in 1843 and the business would remain in the Rich family for the next century, with seventh and eighth generation Rich family members still getting involved with the brand to this day.

In 1850, Woolrich released a product which would help spread the name across the whole of the United States. The Buffalo Check shirt was the perfect all-around outdoorsmen piece of clothing. It was lightweight flannel that could keep you warm but didn’t weigh too much. It was also very resistant to damage such as rips and tears. In the late 1800s, Woolrich started to shift its focus towards more leisure and recreation clothing, broadening the potential market for their products. Other notable products they launched in the wake of this include the Railroad Vest and the Pennsylvania Tuxedo. Following in the footsteps of the iconic Burberry outfitting of the first-ever expedition to the South Pole by Ernest Shackleton, Woolrich outfitted the 1939 US expedition to establish bases near the South Pole.

Woolrich has a long history of working with the US government and other US agencies to help outfit them. Starting as far back as 1917 Woolrich was supplying blankets for WWI. Later US government related endeavors include providing blankets, socks, and other equipment for US WWII soldiers. Another example of this is supplying oil pipeline workers in Alaska with cold weather clothing in the late 1970s. These partnerships with big agencies and corporations for heavy duty tasks has cemented Woolrich as a high-quality manufacturer, gaining a stamp of approval for almost 200 years. However, in the late 1970s and 1980s, the brand did suffer as a whole host of brands began to compete in their space. Companies such as LL Bean, The North Face, Timberland, Patagonia ate a large portion of their market share, and they had to fire over 2600 employees as sales and profits cratered. In 1989, the company took the big step of expanding into Europe, finally becoming an international brand. Around this time, much of the manufacturing began being outsourced, with the company instead choosing to focus on design, marketing, and fulfillment.

Incredible Musical Woolrich Commercial

How to tell if Woolrich is vintage from the logo

The Woolrich history is quite frankly massive. It is so rare for a company to exist for this long, and to do so creates a strength of identity and heritage around the brand and its symbolism that will always be difficult to compete with.

In recent years Woolrich has focused more on the retail market instead of heavy-duty outdoors clothing. While much of their clothing does still fit this purpose, it could be suggested that Woolrich clothing designed and made in the last 20 years is more aimed at the recreational outdoorsmen as opposing to the working outdoorsmen. So often the materials are a slightly lower quality and less rugged on modern products. This is what makes vintage Woolrich so desirable, and fortunately, the brand has updated its logo in intervals that allow us to narrow down an era based on the logo used.

1930s to 1960s Woolrich logo

• The earliest Woolrich logo we could find features an emblem and text logo
• The emblem is a fairly realistic depiction of a sheep on grass
• The text is a script-like font in red that is at a 45-degree angle and underlined by the ‘h’ of Woolrich

1960s to 1980s Woolrich logo

• The next logo similarly used an emblem and font, however had the emblem set above the font instead of underneath it
• The emblem is an outline of a sheep
• A script-like font is used, but this time the text is flat
• The logo is monochrome

1980s to 2000s Woolrich logo

• This logo used a version of the old sheep emblem, but slightly simplified and much smalle
• It also capitalized the Woolrich text

2000s to 2010s Woolrich logo

• The emblem was dropped from this logo
• It reverted back to the font of the earliest Woolrich logo, but was monochrome instead of red
• And it included ‘Est.1830’ as the brand tried to gain authority in its heritage

2010s to now Woolrich logo

• Two logos are currently interchangeably used by Woolrich
• Both include an emblem and text and refer to the founding date with ‘Est. 1830’
• One of the emblems is a slightly thinner outlined version of the sheep from the 1960s logo
• The other is a square with four differently filled squares within it
• The text on both has become fully capitalized

How to tell if Woolrich is vintage from the neck tags

Ironically Woolrich has become a European brand in the last 15 years. As European distributors began outselling Woolrich in the US market, they decided to buy a controlling stake in the US Woolrich operations, and the company is now headquartered in Bologna, Italy. As a result, the cuts tend to be slimmer and more fitted to the body. There are a few other useful clues to watch out for when it comes to identifying if your Woolrich is vintage just before you compare your tags to the examples below.

The first clue to watch out for is which logo has been used. You’ll either see the logo on the design or the neck tags and compare them to the guide above. The next clue is whether or not the item was made in the USA. Although the final Woolrich manufacturing plant closed in 2013, the vast majority of Woolrich production had already been offshored in the 1990s. So, if your Woolrich was made in the USA, it is definitely from before 2013, and quite likely even as old as the 1980s or 1990s. The final clue is the number of wash tags and amount of information on them. Only in the last 20 years has it become commonplace to have multiple wash tags that include a lot of information on them, sometimes in multiple different languages.

Struggling to find your tags? Visit our vintage tag identification page, and we’ll help you identify those vintage labels!

1930s to 1940s vintage Woolrich tags

• The earliest Woolrich tags that we can find use the 1930s logo
• Big navy rectangles are used for the tags, with a white sheep and red writing on top of them
• They also state ‘All Wool’ on them, referring to their all-wool composition
• And they are completely sewn in

1950s vintage Woolrich tags

• Tags in the 1950s did not change much from the 1930s and 1940s
• The logo and emblem used are all the same
• However, an ‘R’ began being used to refer to the trademark Woolrich owned
• And the logo and writing became bigger on the tags

1960s to 1970s vintage Woolrich tags

• In the 1960s Woolrich updated their logo
• This was reflected across the tags
• They began using either white or navy tags
• They would include ‘Est. 1830’ and sometimes state ‘Made in the USA’
• Even if it doesn’t explicitly state ‘Made in the USA’, there’s a good chance it was if it has these tags as all Woolrich production was still in the USA at this time
• Some variations of this tag were created, but this version of the logo is usually the giveaway when it comes to determining if your Woolrich is from the 1960s or 1970s

1990s vintage Woolrich tags

• These tags used the old shape and size, once again becoming large navy rectangles
• They are completely sewn in
• And the updated logo was used, which is set in a box

2000s vintage Woolrich tags

• This script logo was used on Woolrich tags in the 2000s
• Some of the tags became loop tags and even have sizing tags attached to them
• At this time wash tags started to proliferate more throughout pieces of Woolrich clothing

2010s vintage Woolrich tags

• The completely capitalized Woolrich text logo is used on nearly all pieces from the 2010s onwards
• They often have sizing attached to them as little tabs
• And they are not made in the USA