Patagonia: Worn Wear

Patagonia: Worn Wear was a five-week team project for a senior experience-design course. Working in a team of five, we were asked to propose a digital experience that solved a real business problem for a client while staying true to their brand. We focused on Worn Wear, Patagonia's program for buying and selling second-hand gear. My work spanned user research, interaction design, and content strategy.

The business problem: Patagonia's price point puts its gear out of reach for many of the people who most share its environmental values. That works against the brand's mission of creating more environmentally conscious consumers, since the people most aligned with it often can't afford to buy in.

We surveyed 200+ people to test the opportunity. Two findings stood out: quality and condition are the most important factors when shopping for outdoor gear, and 88% of respondents who had heard of Patagonia didn't know Worn Wear existed. The program that could lower the barrier to entry was effectively invisible.

So we reframed the goal: surface Worn Wear inside the main shopping experience instead of treating it as a separate destination, and give shoppers enough transparency to trust a second-hand purchase. That came down to three design moves.

This was one of the first times I saw business and design working in tandem, using experience design to solve a real business problem while staying inside a brand's values. The project was well received in class, and it helped shape how I think about design today.