Legacy in Every Yard

Photo by Jonny Gios

At Frost River, our commitment to crafting heritage-quality gear goes beyond our own workshop. It begins with the raw materials—and the people behind them. The relationships we’ve built with our suppliers are deeply rooted and thoughtfully maintained. From the premium leather sourced from Red Wing Shoe Company’s SB Foot Tannery in southern Minnesota to the waxed canvas woven on the East Coast, every component in a Frost River pack carries a story.

Recently, we had the pleasure of traveling to Bridgeton, New Jersey to visit one of our key material partners: Fairfield Textile. A family-owned business now in its fourth generation, Fairfield has been producing canvas and textile goods with extraordinary craftsmanship and care for decades. Their operation is housed in a modest facility and what they accomplish within its walls is nothing short of remarkable.

A Deeper Look Behind Our Canvas

Walking through Fairfield’s facility, we were struck by the meticulous work behind every yard of fabric. Canvas is inspected with obsessive care, unrolled, checked over foot by foot, then re-rolled. Their technicians, some of whom have been with the company for decades, dye the fabric with time-tested methods and proprietary color formulas passed down through generations. Fairfield has even developed their own wax and waxing process, allowing them to produce what we consider the best waxed fabrics on the market (though they’d never make that claim themselves).

For us at Frost River, it’s suppliers like Fairfield that make our level of quality possible. Without partners that value their craft as much as we do, we simply wouldn’t be able to do what we do.

A Peak into their Archives

During our visit, we had the rare opportunity to browse Fairfield’s fabric archives, rows of shelved rolls in colors and textures you don’t often see in their current production. It’s one thing to look at a 3x3 sample swatch, but to see entire rolls in vivid archival colors was something else entirely. We were fortunate enough to bring a few of these legacy fabrics back with us.

From that moment, inspiration struck.

Waxed Twill

Among the gems we brought home was a roll of waxed twill. Waxed Twill differs from our standard plain weave canvas in both look and feel. Twill’s weave structure gives it a distinctive character of diagonal looking lines in the material while offering increased abrasion resistance and a dense, heavyweight hand. This particular twill clocks in even thicker than our heavyweight 18oz canvas, making it a natural candidate for specialized builds.

To pair with this robust material, we also brought in a 6.25oz lightweight waxed canvas which is a balance to the twill’s ruggedness and a fresh canvas for creativity. Our usual 10.10oz canvas simply wouldn’t complement the structure of the twill, so this new pairing opens up new possibilities for construction and design.

To honor these extraordinary materials, we’ve designed something equally special: the St. Louis Collection. Crafted in limited runs using Fairfield’s archival fabrics, this collection is our tribute to legacy textiles and the makers behind them. Once this fabric is gone, it’s gone and we think that rarity makes it all the more worth celebrating.

This is more than just a new material drop. It’s a continuation of our story, and a nod to the people and places who help shape it.