Grizzly Jacket Origins and History

Winters can get extremely cold, especially in some parts of the world. If you were lucky back in the early 1900s, you would buy a fur coat.

Fur was always known as the most natural heat concealing, wind and waterproof garments. Natives would wear them in the colder months and line their huts and homes with hides.

The original Grizzly was developed in 1910 by Summit. It had a mouton back and front, horsehide leather sleeves and a knitted collar. Pictured below.

The Grizzly jackets that took the 30s by storm, originated from the Edes Robe Tanning Company, established in 1905.

Their main business was making fur lap robes out of ponyskin for carriages and early open-roofed automobiles. Due to carriages being completely replaced by the new closed roofed automobiles, the lap robes became obsolete.

Faced with possible closure, Edes took a new direction into the fur coat business, producing for men and women under the new King-O-Fur label.

Wanting to stand out from the crowd, the owner took style inspiration from the latest waist-length leather jackets. Made with the best ponyskin they could find, the 1927 King-O-Fur fur blouse was made. This jacket featured a ponyskin body with horsehide sleeves and trim, made in the new "cossack" style snap front.
While most Grizzly Jackets found, later on, were made of horsehide and mouton, early "Fur Blouses" truly were fur.

The jacket, with leather sleeves and trim and a fur body, would catch on. Other companies began producing the style, modified with thick mouton panels instead of hair-on ponyskin, in the early 1930s, with the style peaking in popularity in 1937. King-O-Fur would introduce the slogan "Not an Imitation and Not Imitated".


They became popular with the American athletes and were advertised with local sports heroes, helping the boost of the mid to late 1930s.