A bankruptcy filing marks the third time in more than two decades for the storied-but-now-tired brand that started as a Seattle fishing store, later clothed the first American to climb Mount Everest and made thousands of new jackets and sleeping bags for the military during World War II.

Eddie Bauer LLC said Monday it has entered into a restructuring pact with its secured lenders as it makes a filing in US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

Most Eddie Bauer retail and outlet stores in the U.S. and Canada will remain open as the company moves out of some locations. It noted that it will conduct a court-supervised sale process, and if a sale cannot be implemented, it will begin a wind-down of its US and Canadian operations.

“This was not an easy decision,” said Marc Rosen, CEO of Catalyst Brands, which maintains the license to operate Eddie Bauer stores in the US and Canada. “However, this restructuring is the best way to optimize value for the company’s retail stakeholders and also ensure that Catalyst Brands remains profitable and has strong liquidity and cash flow.”

Eddie Bauer stores outside the US and Canada are operated by other licensees, are not included in the Chapter 11 filings, and will remain open, according to the release.

Authentic Brands Group continues to own the intellectual property related to the Eddie Bauer brand and may license the brand to other operators, the company said. The operations of the other brands in the Catalyst Brands portfolio are not affected by this filing and will continue in their normal course, according to the company.

Eddie Bauer’s e-commerce and wholesale operations are also unaffected by the wind, as they are run by a company called Outdoor 5, LLC. That was a transition it made in January and became effective on February 2.

Eddie Bauer has joined a growing list of US retailers this year closing stores, as companies reorganize under bankruptcy protection or scale back their operations to focus on their most profitable businesses.

the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue said last month it was seeking bankruptcy protection, plagued by increased competition and the heavy debt it has taken on. to buy its rival in the luxury sectorNeiman Marcus, over a year ago. A few days later, the parent company said it was shutting down most of them Saks Off the 5th store.

Amazon said earlier this month that it was closing almost all of them Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations within days as it focused on food delivery and the grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.

Eddie Bauer’s namesake founder — an avid outdoorsman — started the company in Seattle in 1920 as Bauer’s Sports Shop, according to the brand’s website. In 1945, after producing over 50,000 jackets for the military, it launched a mail-order catalog.

“Bauer’s Sports Shop isn’t just a place where people shop for clothing and gear, it’s a community center where people gather to share their wisdom, learn, and talk about their outdoor experiences,” the website says.

The company produced an American goose-down insulated jacket, known as the “Skyliner,” in 1936, and it became the company’s first patented jacket. It also equipped the first American to climb Mount Everest — James W. Whittaker — with an Eddie Bauer parka in 1963.

After Bauer retired in 1968 and sold the business to a partner, the outdoor brand moved more into casual wear and was bought by General Mills Inc. in 1971 and then Spiegel Inc. in 1988. After Spiegel filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and most of its assets were sold, the remainder of the company was reorganized in 2005 as Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc.

In June 2009, Eddie Bauer filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by Golden State Capital, the following month. In 2021, it was acquired by Authentic Brands and SPARC Group LLC.

A year later, Catalyst was formed by the merger of SPARC and JCPenney, which Simon Property Group and co-owner of the mall Brookfield bought out of bankruptcy.

Rosen noted that even before the launch of Catalyst Brands last year, Eddie Bauer was in a “challenged situation.”

“Over the past year, these challenges have been exacerbated by various headwinds, including the increased cost of doing business due to inflation, continued tariff uncertainty, and other factors,” he said.

He noted that while Catalyst’s leadership was able to make improvements in product development and marketing, changes could not be implemented fast enough to fully resolve the problems that had been brewing for years.

Eddie Bauer had nearly 600 stores at its peak in 2001, according to CoStar Group Inc., a commercial real estate data firm.

In a note published earlier this month, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote that while the Eddie Bauer name is “well-known”, the brand has not kept pace with rivals such as Swedish outdoor brand Fjallraven and Canadian label Arc’teryx. He also cited issues of quality degradation, which, for a brand outside of being measured by the performance of its products, is very problematic.

“And for a lot of younger shoppers, the brand is seen as a little old and a little irrelevant,” he said.