Featured by Outside · August 2018
Outside Saw What Women Anglers Had Been Saying All Along
Outside featured FisheWear for a story bigger than fishing clothes. It was about a lifelong angler who recognized a problem women knew intimately—and decided it was worth solving.
The story reached beyond a product launch. In its August 22, 2018 profile, the publication introduced founder Linda Leary, the practical frustration behind FisheWear, and a new idea: women should not have to choose between capable gear and clothing that feels like their own.
The quick take
Why the Outside feature mattered
A national spotlight
Outside brought FisheWear’s Alaska-born idea to a much larger outdoor audience.
A problem women recognized
The story began with borrowed layers, men’s cuts, drab colors, and a lack of useful choices.
A solution with personality
FisheWear connected fit and function with expressive fish-inspired design.
A community beyond clothing
Classes, trips, events, and shared days outside were already part of the larger vision.
The story Outside chose to tell
Women were already fishing. Their apparel had not caught up.
Linda grew up fly fishing in Maine. As the original Outside feature explains, that often meant borrowing long underwear and making do with clothing designed around men.
Years later in Alaska, the same conversation kept surfacing on fishing trips: women were on the water, but much of the available clothing still felt boxy, dull, or disconnected from how they wanted to move and feel.
The market had treated women anglers like an afterthought. Linda treated their experience as the starting point.
Lived experience became a business idea
Linda did not arrive from fashion. She arrived from the river.
Outside’s profile connected Linda’s fishing life with her experience building businesses in Alaska. She had spent years organizing client fishing trips and making sure women were included in them.
Those trips created a rare kind of product research: candid conversations among women wearing the gear, moving through real weather, and saying plainly what did not work.
Outside captured the heart of Linda’s belief in one line: “When you feel comfortable, it builds your confidence to go do things.”
Comfort was never a small detail. It could change whether someone stayed out longer, joined the trip, felt prepared, or saw herself as belonging there.
Function without disappearing
FisheWear made room for color on the water
Technical outdoor clothing had long been presented in a narrow visual language. FisheWear’s early designs challenged the idea that serious gear had to be dark, generic, or stripped of personality.
The goal was practical clothing that could work beneath waders and continue into the rest of the day. But it was also permission to enjoy what you wore.
Color was not decoration pasted onto the mission. It was part of making women visible in a space where they had always belonged.
That combination—useful construction, unmistakable artwork, and a woman-led point of view—gave Outside a story that looked different because the idea itself was different.
What Outside saw in FisheWear
Outside did not publish an editor’s checklist explaining why the story was selected. The reasons below are an inference from what its feature chose to emphasize.
An overlooked need
Women had been participating in fly fishing, yet their apparel choices remained limited and often poorly considered.
A credible founder
Linda understood the frustration personally and had the business experience to turn observation into action.
A distinct answer
FisheWear did not simply shrink existing ideas. It connected women’s fit, real use, and bold fish-inspired art.
Visible momentum
The feature also pointed to the early Orvis collaboration and the demand surrounding that launch.
Together, those details made FisheWear more than a product story. They made it a story about who the outdoor industry had failed to see—and what became possible when someone finally paid attention.
The bigger story
Apparel opened the door. Community kept it open.
The Outside feature did not stop at leggings, bags, or patterns. It also described the events growing around the Anchorage showroom: casting clinics, hands-on classes, and trips that welcomed both beginners and experienced anglers.
FisheWear was building reasons for women to gather. The clothing could start a conversation, but the deeper work was helping more women feel comfortable entering the sport, learning together, and returning to the water.
That community thread continues through the larger FisheWear and Women’s Flyfishing story and the brand’s ongoing commitment to creating space for women outside.
Why it still matters
The feature captured a turning point—not a finished story
Looking back, the recognition feels important because Outside documented FisheWear while the brand was proving that women’s fishing apparel deserved more attention, more imagination, and more choices.
It also preserved Linda’s clearest argument: clothing affects how we carry ourselves. As she told Outside, “how you dress matters in the way that you feel.”
FisheWear was never about blending in. It was about building gear and community around the women who were already there.
Explore the full FisheWear story or browse women’s outdoor performance apparel shaped by that original idea.
Read the story that put FisheWear in Outside
Revisit Kelly Bastone’s original 2018 feature and the moment a major outdoor publication helped bring this Alaska-born idea to a wider audience.
Read the Outside FeatureQuick answers
FisheWear’s Outside Feature FAQs
When did Outside feature FisheWear?
Outside published Kelly Bastone’s FisheWear profile on August 22, 2018.
What was the Outside article about?
The feature told how Linda Leary turned years of fishing in borrowed or ill-fitting clothing into FisheWear, a women-focused brand combining practical performance with expressive design.
Why was the Outside feature important?
It brought national attention to an Alaska-born company addressing a long-overlooked need in women’s fishing apparel and building community around women on the water.
Where can I read the original feature?
The original article is available through Outside under the title “FisheWear Makes Women’s Fly-Fishing Apparel.”
Final note: the recognition belongs to the community, too
Outside told Linda’s story, but every woman who asked for better gear, joined a class, booked a trip, shared a fishing day, or wore something bold helped prove the idea.
The feature mattered because the community was already real. The rest of the world was beginning to notice.
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