Rohan is a British designer and supplier of outdoor clothing and footwear that has 50 stores and an annual turnover of £30 million. Their products are designed in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

and manufactured internationally.Rohan Website
Retrieved 1 March 2014

History

The company was founded in 1972 by research chemist Paul Howcroft and his wife Sarah who had met in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. They were both in their early twenties at the time, their start up capital was £70 and they operated from a small house in

Skipton Skipton (also known as Skipton-in-Craven) is a market town and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the East Division of Staincliffe Wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is on the Riv ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

, having chosen that location because of its proximity to West Yorkshire textile mills. Their first product was a pair of quick-drying mountaineering

salopettes Overalls, also called bib-and-brace overalls or dungarees, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers". Overalls were ...

. In 1978, one of their jacket designs was worn by the Austrian climber

Peter Habeler Peter Habeler (born 22 July 1942) is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.http://www.everesthistory.com/climbers/habeler Among his accomplishments as a mountaineer a ...

on the first climb to the summit of

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow hei ...

without bottled oxygen. Soon afterwards the lightweight travel range was launched including Rohan Bags that are still in production today. The Howcrofts lost control of the company in the wake of

Black Wednesday Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the ...

after a period of decline in the 1980s,Rohan at Telegraph Fashion
Retrieved 1 March 2014 and from 1988 it was owned by Clarks until a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena o ...

. In 1993 Paul Howcroft was killed aged 42 in a recreational motoring accident after the couple had separated.Rohan evolution of outdoor gear chronology at Compass
Retrieved 1 March 2014 The Cann Trust and Colin Fisher took control of the company in 2007 and set about improving the product range and simplifying the management structure. The company was hit by the recession and made an operating loss in 2009 of £400,000, but that had been turned into a £384,000 operating profit two years later with a turnover of £17.9m. In 2016, Rohan Designs Ltd was acquired, in a move to enhance its sports and outdoor business, by H. Young Holdings. The H. Young Group is active in two sectors: automotive and sports and leisure – where it also owns Madison, Animal and Leeda In November 2020, two of Rohan's 56 stores were permanently closed - partly as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. The shops in Leeds and Tunbridge Wells had been trading for 21 and 15 years respectively. In April 2021 a further store became victim of the pandemic with the closure of the Brighton store which at that point had been trading in the area for the past 3 years. In September 2022, the Truro store also closed permanently, having opened as a stand-alone branch back in 2017.

Products

The company has introduced fabrics not previously used for clothing tailored to their own designs. Products include trousers and shirts made from

mosquito Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...

repellent and UV protection fabrics,

thermal A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...

fleeces, hats, socks and shoes. The company also introduced a system for rating the suitability of their clothing for different

Climate Zone Climate classifications are systems that categorize the world's climates. A climate classification may correlate closely with a biome classification, as climate is a major influence on life in a region. One of the most used is the Köppen climate ...

s. The clothing has been rated for its practicality rather than stylishness. Rohan review
at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' fashionadvice. Retrieved 1 March 2014

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rohan (Clothing) Outdoor clothing brands British brands Clothing companies of the United Kingdom