Clothing Firm Anticipates All Occasions

Richard Weiss, clad in shorts, was hiking through the French countryside when he came upon one of only 19 three-star restaurants in the whole country. It was time for lunch.

But the haughty French maitre d’, highly coutured in his tuxedo, barred the group of hikers at the door. “I’m sorry, monsieur, but we do not allow short pants in our dining room.”

No problem, Weiss said. He pulled his pant legs out of his backpack, zipped them on above the knee, and asked to be seated. His TravelSmith pants saved the day.

That’s the kind of success story TravelSmith founder Chuck Slaughter is looking for with his mail-order catalog of outfits for adventure travelers that mixes the styles of L.L. Bean and Indiana Jones with the synthetic fabrics of GoreTex and Microfleece.

Slaughter, 33, started the company after hiking the Himalayas, touring Latin America and trekking through China--and determining that fellow adventurers need lightweight, road-worthy clothing with hiking-trail-to-dinner-table versatility.

“I went to six different places looking for stuff” to prepare for his trips, he said during an interview on a recent trip to New York. “I really didn’t find what I was looking for.”

Travelers planning a holiday in Cambodia or a safari in Kenya now have a one-stop, send-away option. Although similar articles and fabrics are available from outdoor outfitters such as REI or Eddie Bauer at comparable prices, Slaughter says his clothing and gear--particularly his handful of signature brands--are lighter and more packable than anything on the market.

“You can get a GoreTex jacket from L.L. Bean or Patagonia, but you can’t get one that fits into this amount of space,” he said, holding a hardcover book-sized packet.

Slaughter, who founded TravelSmith four years ago, projects 1996 will be a big growth year, with sales rising to $20 million from $8.5 million in 1995. The San Rafael-based company has attracted the attention of other retailers; it recently rejected a buyout offer from Lands’ End, Slaughter said.

The company focuses on service as well as hard-to-find clothes. TravelSmith tries to guide uncertain travelers to exactly what they need for, say, a week in the Galapagos Islands.

An “outfitting advisor” reachable by phone will ask the destination and duration of the trip and tell the customer what the weather will be like. The advisor then takes the customer through the catalog and suggests, for example, a Coolmax polo shirt, which unlike cotton “wicks moisture away from the skin and out into the air . . . so you won’t lose your composure in front of the concierge or the customs official.”

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Many items have safety features for travelers worried about theft, such as hidden compartments that zip money and passports into the lining of jackets, and pockets on the front of shirttails that safely tuck in below the waistline.

Half of the catalog is devoted to women, and features outdoor gear similar to the men’s, as well as conservative long skirts useful for church, mosque and temple visits where shorts would be inappropriate or even prohibited, Slaughter said.

The catalog also sells water purifiers and insect repellent. And virtually everything, even a navy dinner jacket that can be scrunched into a backpack without wrinkling, can be rinsed in a sink and dries in about half an hour.

“Traveling with blue jeans is really silly,” Slaughter said. “They’re heavy. They take 10 years to dry out.”

Many items are too pricey to appeal to the twentysomething backpacker set, so TravelSmith is trying to cater a more upscale market of 40- to 60-year-olds who want to see the world but also want to minimize their risks.

“They have an off-the-beaten-path spirit, but want a nice place to sleep,” Slaughter said.

Weiss will remember his French restaurant experience for a long time to come, particularly because on a previous trip he was barred from a fine dining establishment in Tuscany, Italy, and did not yet have his TravelSmith pants.

The pants were made, he said, “for those who want to have that blend of outdoor travel and access to the finer culinary shrines.”