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A Brief History of Friends

An interview with Mark Vallance, founder of Wild Country and the man who brought Friends to the world.

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“The first time I saw Friends, I was absolutely gobsmacked by them. And I intuitively knew how they worked. Ray Jardine had a little bag with his prototypes in it. He pulled one out, it was a #3 Friend. He put it into my hand and I immediately triggered it and I looked around and there was a crack just behind me, and I just put it into the crack and pulled it, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be revolutionary.'”

——Mark Vallance


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