About AR Gaiters

AR Gaiters was started by adventure racer and ultrarunner Lisa de Speville back in the early 2000s. She began making Mini AR Gaiters for herself and then here-and-there for friends, on request. By the late 2000s, Lisa's mom Elizabeth (Liz), was assisting with sewing.

With three years of desert running at the the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge (ADAC) and running of the lovely five-day Namib Desert Challenge, Lisa tested various versions of her Desert AR Gaiters design.

By the 2010 edition of ADAC, her design was perfect and, with help from Liz, Lisa made Desert AR Gaiters for her team as well as two other teams. Other requests started to come in.

With the Mini AR Gaiter and Desert AR Gaiter designs working perfectly, Lisa began working on an improved orienteering gaiter. She combined her favourite features from various styles of orienteering gaiters that she had bought and used over many years. She added a Mini AR Gaiter to the bottom of her design and the Adventure AR Gaiters was created.

By 2012, Liz had taken over all aspects of AR Gaiters. She added Hiking AR Gaiters to our catalogue a few years ago after making a good number of them for friends who wear hiking boots for day and multiday hikes.

In 2024 we added the AR Gaiters P Cloth, a product we wish we'd done years ago for ourselves and for you, and the dynamic Transition AR Gaiters, originally created on request for Team Merrell Adventure Racing. 

In 2025, we added the Bush AR Gaiters, initially created for our friend Chris who hiked the length of the Kruger National Park and needed enhanced grass seed defence. 

Our AR Gaiters are available in a constantly-changing range of colours and prints to suit your personality, apparel or team. We also create customised fabric designs for events, teams and special occasions.

AR Gaiters are handmade. On the production side, we are blessed to have Elize and Aletta, our amazing sewing elves, who, together with Liz, sew AR Gaiters to our high standards.

In early 2023, Lisa rejoined AR Gaiters to handle orders, admin, the eShop, our social media and custom fabric designs.