“In the closet, I had a mattress and TV,” says Ed Davidson. “The rest was army surplus.” The year was 1971, and even as American campuses boiled over with antiwar protests, students wanted to look like grunts–“It was basically hard to protest if you didn’t have the right field jacket,” Davidson recalls.

Within a year, Davidson was able to move Bivouac out of his William Street apartment into the Maynard House spot vacated by Tom and Louis Borders when they moved to State Street. By 1975, Davidson was on State Street, too, renting a corner spot in Nickels Arcade–the first of what are now four adjoining storefronts.

Bivouac survived to celebrate its fortieth birthday on October 22 because it’s constantly evolving, Davidson says: “As hair got shorter in the community, we’d have been naive if we didn’t change, too.” So instead of army surplus tents, Bivouac now sells new ones from brands like Sierra Designs or Marmot; field jackets have given way to North Face and Patagonia. Davidson also added women’s fashions–including one item that captures how the times, and his customers, have changed.

In the early days, “we sold used blue jeans,” Davidson recalls. “We’d sell them for half what a new pair cost–if new jeans were $11, they’d be $6.50. Forty years later, we’re selling new jeans, made to look old, for $150. We’ve come full circle.”