Our Story
My name is Andrew Gibbs-Dabney. I'm a lifelong outdoorsperson who owns a company whose main message is to buy less stuff. If that sounds a little backward, my story will help you understand.
Experience
In 2011, I messed up. Rattled by years of opioid addiction, I robbed a liquor store and my life changed forever. After shuffling from rehab to jail to prison, I was granted early-release from a 20-year sentence. Through this experience, I had a lot of time to reflect on my life and on what really mattered. Sitting in a cell, alone and stripped of all my belongings, I realized that it wasn’t stuff that I really missed. It was my friends, my family, and my freedom.
When I was given a second chance, I had a new appreciation for the opportunity to enjoy the world. I promised myself I wouldn’t take it for granted again. I began prioritizing what was important, and in doing so, realized how much stuff I had. That stuff wasn't what mattered. What mattered were friends and family. What mattered were memories. What mattered was my freedom -- and to me that meant the freedom to explore the outdoors.
Through this realization, I came to appreciate a few of my belongings that allowed me to experience the world in a better way. They were well-built, worked well, and tended to fade into the background -- allowing for a fuller experience. I loved those things and made time to take care of them. I realized that owning fewer, better things allowed me to avoid distraction and to reinvest in what mattered most.
Concept
I began simplifying my wardrobe and gear closet and found myself spending more time outside. I adopted an “own less, live more” mentality, and instead of outright rejecting stuff, I fell in love with the good stuff that remained. When I couldn’t find my perfect pair of pants, I decided to make them, and that’s when LIVSN was born.
Our name came from a Swedish word I found meaningful along the way: Livsnjutare. It means "one who lives life fully." This led me to wonder, "If someone wants to live life fully, what clothing best helps them do it?"
Execution
From our very first Kickstarter in 2018, we’ve made functional, versatile, and durable clothing purpose-built for the outdoors. Our goal is to inspire people to own less of it, invest more in it (financially and emotionally), and live their lives more deeply.
As we continue to make things, we believe it is our responsibility to do so responsibly, ensuring that people around the world are also able to live life deeply, like we strive to do. As of Spring 2025, we are a Certified B Corporation, legally binding us to our mission to "Create products and systems that maximize function and minimize harm to people and planet."
Occasionally, we take breaks from making more products to focus on making even better ones. Instead of making new products, we update our classics based on customer feedback and dive deep into our supply chain. To us, better means more-intentionally designed, more-thoughtfully constructed, and more-responsibly produced.
We make our sole focus to do what we do better, and we’re grateful you’re joining us on this path.
-Andrew Gibbs-Dabney & the whole LIVSN team
p.s. You may have noticed we updated our story after six years. We haven't always started with Andrew's experience. We used to skip the beginning and just explain the concept and how we executed it. However, as we grow, we find it increasingly important to tell the full story in the hope people can see a little bit of themselves in his story and that they, like us, learn to own things with greater intention and live life more deeply.