Rock Solid Garment Innovations

Yosemite in the 70s became home to an eccentric group of young rock climbers. Fueled by jazz, psychedelics, and the intoxicating scent of the outdoors, this group, known as the Stone Masters, redefined the sport and laid some pretty serious style cues along the way.

Among them was an 18 year old Mike Graham, who donned the nickname “Gramicci” after the crew had planned the first “all-italian ascent” of the famous Half Dome in Yosemite. As was the playful nature of the Stone Masters, none of them were actually Italian. So they had to devise with Italian names for each other. Gramicci’s stuck and later became the namesake for his brand.

The typical uniform of a rock climber was military surplus, old clothes and headbands to keep back all that scraggly hair. This didn’t do it for Graham. Yes they were durable and yes they were cheap, but they couldn’t keep up with the flexibility and movement of the climbers. Graham chose to solve this problem with good design. Armed with a sewing machine, he took to his garage to make his first pair of G-pants.

Drawing inspiration from karate pants (as seen on Bruce Lee) he included a gussets crotch on his climbing pants. The gusseted crotch was a piece of fabric that replaced the seam where the front and back rise met. The seam was replaced with a diamond-shaped piece that enabled a greater range of motion, which for karate practitioners allowed for deeper crouched stances as well as higher kicks.

The application for mountain climbers is an increase in range of motion that enables for quicker, more fluid climbs. In addition to the gusseted crotch, Graham added a sewn-in belt. This made it easy to tighten pants with one hand (as the other was probably occupied holding on for dear life).

These pants took the climbing world by storm, quickly spilling over into the neighboring cultures of surf and skate. From there it became the uniform of choice for those seeking the most out of life.