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VER THE PAST FEW SEASONS, THERE HAS BEEN A VERITABLEgold rush of outdoor apparel companies prospecting in the alpine

ski market. Just about everyone in the rag business has developed entireclothing lines designed for riding lifts. Core outdoor brands such as Arc’Teryx, Cloudveil, Mountain Hardwear and Patagonia are now attendingthe Snowsports Industries America (SIA) trade show in Vegas every win-ter. And sales reps are targeting shops that have little in common with thetraditional outdoor retailer.

But, what’s the thinking behind this trend? And how can outdoor retail-ers capitalize on it and more effectively plan rack space for the coming fall?

SNOWSPORTS INDUSTRYAccording to the SIA Intelligence Report, the snowsports industry rings

up about $500 million worth of business per year in apparel. Thesedollars have certainly been enticing to an outdoor industry seek-

ing to expand its market. Some of the mainstay outdoor brands have long attended

the SIA show. Many alpine skiers are familiar with The NorthFace Steep Tech collection—a clothing line that has been

around so long that it’s now coming back as a retro look.Marmot has also had a long presence at SIA, accord-ing to spokesman John Cooley. “Our first attendance

was 1987 and we never left. Then, we had a verydifferentiated alpine ski line. It consisted of about

10 products, plus accessories,” said Cooley.Now the collection includes more than 30

styles, not including underwear and gloves.For Mountain Hardwear and Patagonia,

they have attended SIA more sporadically.“We first started at SIA as a brand in 1996,but stopped in 1998,” said MountainHardwear President Mike Wallenfels.“We then attended again in 2000 due tothe Olympic (dates) conflict with Out-door Retailer. Mountain Hardwear start-ed attending SIA again in 2003 as westarted to grow with more retailersthat were only attending that trade

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overall market by attending and participat-ing as a member of the trade association.”

Patagonia too has only recently commit-ted again to SIA, with 2005 marking its lat-est return. Despite a long absence, RichHill, vice president of sales, is emphaticthat, “We never didn’t do skiwear. Fromday one, we have been selling to ski shops.”Originally, Patagonia attended SIA with askeleton crew primarily to support organ-izations it was involved with, such as theProfessional Ski Instructors Associationand National Ski Patrol. But the introduc-tion of the Edge collection in 2004 was theimpetus for a significant presence in Vegas.

Among the newer outdoor brands tocrossover was Arc’Teryx, which first at-tended SIA in 2001 to show its Descentcollection—not surprisingly, the compa-ny was purchased by Salomon the nextyear. More recently, Cloudveil showed itsVertical collection in 2004, and Mammutdebuted its Snow collection in 2005.

BLURRING THE LINESOf course, most of us in the outdoor indus-try have been using our backcountry cloth-ing for front-country skiing and riding atresorts all along; occasionally passingthrough gates for out-of-bounds side coun-try powder runs. Certainly, gear designedfor backpacking and climbing can workjust fine for sliding down snow slopes.And though they’d be loathe to admit it,some telemark skiers like the mountaineerlook to further set themselves apart fromwhat many consider frou-frou alpineskiers and baggy-clothed snowboarders.

Outdoor companies are reaching out tothe alpine ski market partly because of thesignificant number of people who are tra-ditional backcountry skiers that now skiboth backcountry and front country. Manyskiers and snowboarders are at the resortsand in terrain parks when backcountryconditions aren’t ideal or too dangerousbecause of avalanche hazards. Others maysimply have reached an age, fitness leveland income bracket where riding lifts hasmore appeal than skinning up hills.

While there is much in common, thereare also key differences that sometimes makebackcountry clothing less than ideal for re-sort skiing. In the backcountry, skiers always

have a pack that allowsthem to add or shed a

layer as the weather changes. And since theyare usually self-powered, weight and bulk ofclothing is more of a consideration.

At resorts, skiers seldom wear a pack andit can take a couple hours to get back to acondo or parking lot, particularly at largeones like Mammoth and Vail, if layers needto be adjusted. Plus, overheating on runsfollowed by chilling on lifts can make dress-ing comfortably a challenge. Well-designedsnowsports apparel can have the luxury ofbeing heavier to offer features the back-country purists consider frivolous.

Thus, most of the outdoor brands chasingthe snowsports market are adding featuresto their backcountry designs. For example,Wallenfels told GearTrends®, “At MountainHardwear, we created a universal set of fea-tures that focus on user-friendly elementssuch as MP3 pockets, removable powderskirts, pass holders, removable hoods, insu-lated hand pockets, and internal pockets forgoggles or gloves. We have also looked atcolor and style being a critical point of dif-ferentiation from the core outdoor line.”

As one of the older players in this mar-ket, Marmot has had time to try a varietyof approaches over the years. And it has-n’t always been easy, according to Cooley.

“We had to remember, or learn, who wewere to the alpine retailer,” said Cooley.“We thought we had to be something dif-ferent. But the solution was to be very goodat who we already were: highly functional,simple, clean with good fit and detail. Oncelearned, we had a place in alpine shops.”

Where the products are sold has also be-come more blurred in recent years—an-other point with which Wallenfels agreed.

“It is extremely difficult to draw the lineon what makes an outdoor shop and a skishop. We have made attempts in the pastto classify retailers, but we abandoned theexperiment,” Wallenfels said.

Steve Sullivan, co-founder of Cloudveiland now the company’s director of advancedproduct development, estimated that rough-ly 65 percent of its snowsports apparel issold in ski/snowboard-specific shops. Sim-ilarly, Cooley said Marmot does more busi-ness in the ski shops because of the featuresit offers, like removable hoods, tons of pock-ets, performance linings, component jacketoptions, insulated styles and powder shirts.

THE SOFT DILEMMA Do alpine skiers understand soft shells?It’s a bit ironic that the technology of

stretch woven fabrics came from thealpine ski world in the ’50s

in the shapely

form of Bogner pants. Yet fashion trendswent in another direction and, aside fromracers, stretch fabrics all but died out atresorts. For the past few decades, alpineski shops have mostly sold non-stretch, in-sulated clothing; much of it long on styleand short on quality materials and con-struction.

Meanwhile, the outdoor industry has had20 years to figure out how to make func-tional jackets with stretch fabrics that arewind-resistant and breathable. For the firstdecade, few had heard of or understoodhow the technology worked. But in the pastdecade, soft shells have continued to snow-ball, becoming a mainstream outdoor prod-uct in many parts of the country.

Over the past few years, outdoor brandshave been trying to reintroduce soft shellsto the snowsports world, but it hasn’t al-ways been an easy sell for a variety of rea-sons. Confusion over what fabrics workbest for different conditions has some-times resulted in disappointed customers.

“Soft shells are still a little foreign andare not cozy and warm…yet. The weath-er has to be pretty mild to use a soft shellgarment for snowsports, but I have seenin Europe that it is much more common,”said Wallenfels. “I believe that it is a cat-egory that will grow as we expand intowarmer fabrics and designs. While softshells have yet to be fully embraced insnowsport use, we see insulated soft shellsgaining a position in the near future.”

Cooley agreed. “Like the DriClime wind-shirt, it takes time for soft shells to catch on.The first question is whether ski retailers getsoft shell. Because the aerobic needs of analpine skier are so much lower than a back-country skier, the ski soft shell tends to beless breathable, warmer and heavier—wit-ness the Gore-Tex soft shell ski styles ver-sus outdoor styles—and sometimes lined—a contradiction for the climber,” he said.

“More importantly, there is a demo-graphic thing here,” added Cooley.“Younger alpine skiers want to look like amountain guy or gal, and not like they arefrom Scottsbluff. So they lean toward thesoft shell as a look, perhaps not fully un-derstanding, or caring about, the function.The piste telemarkers, lifties, food servicefolks and locals all reinforce a mountainsoft shell look. And they are likely goingto buy that look in a local mountain store.”

This presents a dilemma for ski shopstrying to sell soft shells. They haven’t tra-ditionally sold the “mountain look” so theydon’t stock it, creating a self-fulfillingprophecy. At least until warmer soft shellscatch on, outdoor shops will have an ad-vantage selling to the crossover market.

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Brands like Arc’Teryx and Patagonia arehaving good success with blending hardand soft shell materials in hybrid jackets,which are popular with front-country skierswho are starting to get out-of-bounds.

Cloudveil—the company that frequent-ly gets credit for getting the soft shell cat-egory going eight years ago in JacksonHole, and helped popularize the technol-ogy—said skiers get soft shell far morethan the outdoor industry might realize.

According to Sullivan, “Soft shell is astyle. It is the classic stretch woven that wehelped pioneer for the backcountry. It isnow Windstopper soft shell. It is insulatedsoft shell, and even many types of water-proof/breathables—including Gore-Tex—are being touted as soft shell. It is pervasivein the ski market. So the answer is, yes,alpine skiers are totally getting it. The real-ity is the old stretch ski pants of the ’50sand ’60s were the first real soft shells and soit’s been around that market for a long time.”

STEPPING UP TO SKIWEARJust as alpine ski and snowboard shops havebeen slow to draw in the telemark and ATskiers, backcountry stores have long ignoredthe front-country skiers and snowboarders.If outdoor shops understand the needs of

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this broader consumer market, they canboost sales without losing their identity.

“Many outdoor specialty retailers areevolving away from the me-too look of muchof the classic outdoor apparel and lookingfor distinctive programs that draw in andappeal to a new customer,” Sullivan toldGearTrends®. “These outdoor specialty retail-ers are realizing that bringing new programsto their stores is an effective way to diver-sify … even the big guys like REI are sellingRoxy, Burton, etc. It is becoming more andmore commonplace for our outdoor retail-ers to look hard at the entire range and notjust our Backcountry programs.”

This doesn’t mean Sullivan, who was a re-tailer before his Cloudveil days, is advocat-ing bringing in a full selection of alpinefashion wear that might seem out of placein an outdoor store chock-full of packs,tents and sleeping bags. Insulated pieces—perhaps with a roomier fit and waterproofreinforcements on shoulders, thighs andseats for sitting on chairlifts—are goodplaces to begin expanding a selection. Whilezip-in liners aren’t popular with climbersand backcountry skiers, front-country usersoften consider this a great feature.

“The strongest category for alpine-re-

lated products would be anything with in-sulation that is either fixed or removable,”Wallenfels added.

“I do believe that outdoor retailers aregetting better at selecting styles that aremore focused on the alpine consumer,”Wallenfels said. “Functionally, outdoorand alpine have shared similar features,but as outdoor has started to focus on lessweight and more simplicity, this has beencounter to the alpine consumer who is notnecessarily wearing a pack and is lookingfor durability and warmth rather than lowweight and compressibility.”

With nearly two decades in the alpineski category, Marmot has tried variousstyle collections, including some that werefull-on fashion, and settled on what works.According to Cooley, the snowsports prod-ucts experiencing the best growth are lessstyle-specific, more versatile and moremountain-oriented.

Compared to the fashion ski market,“The outdoor customer niche is more spe-cific and so are the feature sets necessaryto hit that niche. Garment weight, length,colorways, hood style, pocketing, fabricsand finishing are more narrow for out-door,” Cooley said. “Three-layer is strongin outdoor. Two-layer lined is strong inski. Shells are outdoor. Insulated is ski.Layering is outdoor. Components are ski.”

Cloudveil, too, said it emphasizes thefeature set to the front-country user.

“We have paid much more attention toour backyard, our mountain culture andthe western vibe. Our new collection hasfeatures people really want in pure freerideapparel, such as iPod pockets, pass pock-ets, etc.,” said Sullivan. “Insulated stylesare very, very strong for us, and so we’veexpanded there.”

Location is also an important factor inwhat sells. According to Wallenfels, “Thereis a clean line separating the nation at theRockies. East of the Divide, insulated hardshells are the standard and most retailersdon’t want to look at any non-insulatedshell tops. The West will indeed layer andalso has more mild conditions making aninsulated jacket too hot for most use. Sincewe are focused as a backcountry ski brandand a majority of our sales are West of theDivide, we still show a majority of ourstyles as shells or shell systems.”

Although the major outdoor brands aremaking a push into the ski world, outdoorretailers have much to gain by luring thegeneral public. With a good selection, newcustomers can be enticed through thedoors. And, quite possibly, they will returnfor other gear when the snow melts.

» To download extra copies of this magazine or togive us feedback, go to GearTrends.com.

S K I W E A R

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