Silicon Valley’s ‘Swag Gap’: A Colorful Rival Comes for Patagonia’s Abdicated Throne

Earlier this month, Peter Coats was milling about a block party in San Francisco’s Glen Park neighborhood wearing one of his most discussed articles of clothing: a Cotopaxi windbreaker with army green and blue colorblocking across the chest and a barely visible Google logo on the sleeve. Coats, Google’s head of strategic finance, said he wears the jacket once or twice a week and “I usually get compliments.”

Coats’ Cotopaxi, received for free from his employer after a volunteering event in 2021, isn’t just a colorful conversation piece. It’s also a sign that the reign of the monochrome Patagonia vest is over in Silicon Valley. Long beloved for its warmth and comforting blandness, the corporate-branded Patagonia vest became a 2010s time-capsule item last year when the company announced it would permanently stop selling such merchandise. (A “nonremovable logo reduces the lifespan of a garment, often by a lot, for trivial reasons,” it argued.) Patagonia’s departure left a quarter-zip–shaped hole in the corporate gear market, creating what Costanoa Ventures partner Martina Lauchengco dubs “the swag gap.”

A number of other labels are racing to become tech’s go-to maker of branded swag. There are the traditional strongholds: your North Face puffers, L.L. Bean zip-ups, Nike T-shirts and Lululemon pullovers. Plus, a few scattered smaller brands, like Vuori and Marine Layer, are making inroads with marketing departments. But Cotopaxi, with its brightly colored fabrics and subtle use of company branding, is quickly rising as the must-have name in tech swag.