“In the 1950s, in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, the ambitious and intrepid Clarke Brothers came up with one of the first iconic outdoor products ever developed – the ‘Craghoppers’. A breech, lovingly known as ‘breeks’, manufactured from the finest Derby tweed”.

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) version hasn’t got it quite right as we don’t think their ‘breeks’ were the first, though the Clarke brothers did invent/create the term Craghoppers; we have a fine pair of their Derby Tweed ‘breeks’ elsewhere in the collection. A firm called G+H Products took over Clarkes around 1975, they dropped the Clarkes, but kept the Craghoppers name and produced, amongst many other things, these Spletz Salopettes shortly after – interestingly with a long and a short version, the beginning of the end of knee length breeches thank goodness!

Salopettes were mostly the chosen fashion for downhill skiers back in the 1970s/80s. Craghoppers & Rohan brought them to climbers though, surprisingly perhaps, they never became that popular.

The Regatta Group acquired G+H in 2008 and still trade using the Craghoppers brand name in 2025.