Path-dependent Foundation of Global Design-driven Outdoor Trade in the Northwest of England

During the 1960s, the northwest region of the United Kingdom (illustrated in Figure 1) became the home of several innovative design-based companies producing clothing and equipment for mountaineering and outdoor sports. This region borders on the Pennines. It includes north Cheshire, Manchester, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Sheffield and parts of what is now Yorkshire. From the early 18th century, these adjoining regions played a central role in the newly emerging Industrial Revolution. Design activity in Manchester and Sheffield led to hundreds of new technologies and products, many of them world-changing. At the time, Manchester was a world leader in design activity that resulted in radical technical, social, commercial, organisational, educational and political changes. In contrast, the cutting-edge design activity taking place in Sheffield was focused more tightly on steel production. From as early as the 14th century, the Sheffield area specialised in cutlery production. In early 18th-century Sheffield, the design of the crucible process, a new way of making better steel, facilitated new engineering and product design in the emerging Industrial Revolution. From that time to the middle of the 20th century, Manchester and Sheffield were the home of design and manufacture in cotton, textile machinery and specialist steel, together with related industries such as printing, linoleum-making and machine production. The 20th century industrial decline of Manchester and Sheffield, and the accompanying decay and unemployment, came with rising foreign competition. However, despite this decline, there remained a legacy of experience and skill, and a deeply embedded culture of design and innovation, which, combined with new knowledge and applied to new activities, contributed, amongst other things, to the design of new outdoor clothing and equipment and to sporting innovation.