PASSION

WHO WE ARE

Starting Dagon Apparel Co has been a dream that I've had for several years.  The dream of creating my own fishing apparel line that would offer shirts that had both high functionality and style was finally too hard to resist its call. I have worn the usual suspect brands of fishing shirts over the years but have never settled on any one brand I particularly liked.  It either didn’t have the right pockets, the right style, or the right fit for me.  In particular, I wanted certain types of pockets where I could stuff exactly what I wanted to fish within them so I didn’t need a bunch of other gear hanging on me, getting in the way, or slowing me down trying to get to it when there were fish ready to be caught.  I wanted to bring more functionality to rolling up sleeves so line won’t tangle in them or they don’t flap loosely during a cast.  And of course I wanted some style when I donned on a shirt.  I just didn’t want to look like the twin of “that guy” in the other boat that had ran out to the closest sporting goods store to buy his first fishing shirt.  Dagon was founded to design stylish, highly functional fishing shirts that fishermen would get real excited about to wear.  Shirts that would match the passion we share for fishing.  I thought, “if we can build somebody's favorite shirt to wear fishing, then we might be able to build a business around that.”  If we cannot, then we have failed in our mission. We hope that you, our customers, will help us achieve our mission – that some of our shirts will become your favorites to wear.   As we create other products outside of shirts, such as pants, shorts, shoes, hats, or whatever we make, we hope that those products too will become somebody's favorite item to wear when they fish. If we can achieve our vision of building the favorite fishing apparel for our customers, the dream of building up a successful fishing apparel brand will take care of itself.

WHY DAGON?

One can choose from thousands of names that connote fishing or fish when choosing a name for a fishing apparel business.  What I wanted to find was a unique name that symbolizes what our brand is about.  As we looked through different ideas for names, we came across Dagon.  Dagon is the name of the ancient Babylonian fish god. Our name had the elements that I was looking for – a two syllable word, an ancient history, a name that might invoke passion – i.e. a name that people had worshiped at one time, and a name that was about fishing or a fish.  So, we chose this name – Dagon - to build a brand around.  Dagon, the ancient half man and half fish god.   Rise up.

THE FISH GOD

Dagon (or “Dagan” as spelled in some historical writings) was originally a Babylonian fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of fish and/or fishing (as a symbol of multiplying). He was worshiped by the early Amorites, founders of the city of Babylon. He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Philistines, descendants of the Babylonians, and he was an important god of the maritime Canaanites, the Phoenicians.Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the Mesopotamian gods Ilu (Ēl), Dagan, and Adad are especially common.  Dagon was referred to as lord of the gods and lord of the land in some of the earliest records.  Records of Dagon and whence he came and his role vary in later cultures.  In the Bible, Dagon is referred to as the god of the Philistines.  Another interpretation of Dagon from the Bible was “that Dagon had the form of a fish and, from his navel up, the form of a man.In all past records that we researched, Dagon is depicted as an important god of past civilizations with many ties to the symbolism of fishing or being of a fish.  Figures of Dagon found on Babylonian gems, on Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, and on pieces of sculptures in the region combine in different ways the body of a man and of a fish.  Taking the depiction of Dagon from the historical records and art in more general terms, Dagon personifies the idea that the ocean with its wealth of fish was worshiped as the chief source of human nourishment and culture.