Men’s Snowboard Outerwear FW16/17 Trend Report

Burton

Snowboard outerwear has had a tough couple of years and a bunch of brands have had to make big changes to stay relevant in a fast changing and competitive business environment. The ones that couldn’t keep up have disappeared entirely. But more positively, the outerwear world is dotted with some runaway success stories; brands that somehow manage to land the right formula and are paying everybody’s wages and keeping consumer interest piqued. Let’s find some more of those money-makers as we examine the details in our FW16/17 Men’s Outerwear Trend Report. By Tom Wilson-North.

PRIMARY DIRECTIONS – TECHNICAL
Next year the high-tech look remains strong for brands identifying with the backcountry rider, big mountain rider, splitboarder or lottery winner. This means taped seams, thin fabrics, waterproof zippers and eye-watering price tags. Norrøna have a brand new line called Tamok coming out which focuses on darker tones, and 686 have made their first foray into Gore-Tex within their GLCR range. Quiksilver’s Highline is a capsule collection featuring Travis Rice’s signature pieces and Gore-Tex C-Knit backer technology. “This is really the pinnacle of waterproof outerwear technology: gear that will keep you warm and dry all day, every day, whatever the mountain throws at you”, explains their Global PLM Thomas Bourgault.

Quiksilver

A sub trend of this popular and well-selling direction is the trend towards pieces with minimal stitching. The most innovative brands are using multi-density fabrics and high-science fusing technologies to reduce the need to stitch panels together. This means fewer holes, less waste, reduced garment fragility, greater comfort and prettier aesthetics. Whilst Picture acknowledged The North Face for their efforts in marketing their Fuseform technology, founder (and happy new father) Julien Durant is adamant that his company’s new Eno2 jacket is unmatched worldwide in terms of outerwear innovation. The package includes seamless double density fabrics with jacquard, seamless colour blocking, seamless body mapping and a lifetime warranty on the fabric.

The North Face’s Fuse Brigandine using a similar multi-density tech counters with a twill based fabric structure that, along with a knit backer, allows the jacket to feel very different from a traditional 3L. It’s got better breathability than ever, moves easily and is very quiet. Quiet jackets that don’t sound like a wind turbine when you’re walking around are trending too, so make sure you give your fabrics a good rub when you’re sashaying around ISPO.

PRIMARY DIRECTIONS – CROSSOVER
Consider adjusting your approach to selling outerwear, because we found that multi-activity snowboard jackets are a big part of next year’s product lines. “We’ve transitioned to make an entire collection of lifestyle jackets which are as functional as outerwear but slightly detuned for a more street environment. The brands that we see growing aren’t sports specific…they’re stylish and versatile,” says Burton’s VP of Softgoods, Andrew Burke. “There’s no real need to segment”, he continues. “Of course we’re focused on making the best equipment for snowboarding, but the lines in the marketplace have been blurred for the consumer… there’s no reason to keep them up”. Urban Beach agree: “We’re really focusing on multi-functional, so we’re working our outerwear to perform as well in a city as the mountains or beach, but just as functional and usable in cold and wet weather”, they say. Animal mirror this: “Although we take our winter sports seriously, we also realize that our customers’ needs go beyond the mountain slopes,” states Leon Young, their Technical Outerwear & Men’s Lifestyle Designer. Perhaps it’s time to pad out the streetwear part of the store a little more with crossover winter jackets by accepted boardsports brands, then.

Careful, though. Technical full-function outerwear that looks like streetwear is not the same thing – and this is where it can get confusing for customers. Zimtstern cited ‘shreddable streetwear’ as a big FW16/17 direction; their Leifz jacket has a rough surface, metal chest zips and felt badging to look steezy on the mountain but still appropriate around town. Volcom’s HR&S outerwear line is all about street influenced snowboard gear. And every brand we spoke to has something similar in the pipes. Where does this come from? Well, take even a cursory look at the hot urban snowboard videos of the moment and you won’t see a single snowboard jacket – it’s hoodies, jeans, cords, jumpers and workwear. Some snowboarders don’t want to look like they are going snowboarding.

PRIMARY DIRECTION – MILITARY

Dakine

Military styling and boardsports fit together like toast and peanut butter, and there’s no change next year. You’ll see this done well at Dakine, and DC twist it up with military influenced streetwear style. L1, as ever, gather their inspiration from vintage military, which comes through clearly in their on-trend, clean and functional line next year.

PRIMARY DIRECTION – OTHER DIRECTIONS
Other directions you’ll want to look out for in the showrooms (or at least drop into conversation with whoever pays you) are the long bomber jacket/down jacket trend, and the retro surf vibe which is a big direction for Quiksilver and Burton next year. There are double knee pants abound, and bib pants remain un-ignorable in snowboarding and you’ll see them from practically everyone. Holden’s Fader Bib is a corker; it’s 20k/20k and the MSRP is very reasonable.

TECHNICAL FEATURES
Gadgets and gimmicks are important features in an outerwear collection – the forward looking and futurist customer loves that stuff, and they make great talking points on the shop floor too. They’re also often the first things to go wrong, giving shops fabulous opportunities to provide excellent aftersales service.

Rip Curl’s Ultimate Search Outfit is a zip-free onesie which has an also-available avalanche safety vest with integrated inflatable Mammut Airbag 3.0, as well as avalanche equipment pockets which will excite the safety-conscious client. Meanwhile, Billabong have a new Boa hood adjustment system on their Polar Star jacket, and Westbeach are using a new super-technical material in their new 30K Cove Jacket and Birch Bib. In fabrics, Under Armour make their first foray into the European outerwear market with a cool-sounding Reactor Jacket which uses a fibre foam called VLAB. “The fibres are placed in a V shape, which yields a very high loft at low weight. The insulation actively helps to move moisture away from the body, and the shape of the fibres causes a turbulent air exchange with low velocity, thus keeping wind away from the body,” they told us.

FABRICS
Speaking of fabrics, there’s nothing utterly revolutionary out there next year – it’s more about consolidation and improvements to working practices. Burton have an in-house development facility in China called Threadworks, in which they designed a face fabric using Cordura with Gore-Tex. The final high-tech product is pigment dyed and enzyme washed, which gives it great performance and durability with a unique street look.

Mountain White play safer with classic British Isles fabrics like Harris Tweed and Ventile, and Horsefeathers are showing washed effect fabrics and a gorgeous dark denim-like fabric that’s well worthy of a closer inspection once you touch down in Munich.

FITS
For a while it’s been long jacket, skinny pant for the freestyle guys and straight cut all over for the big mountain dudes. This remains the core silhouette, although there are some variations to look out for.

686

DC are big players in the street-inspired arena with a Drop Crotch fit on their Asylum Pant. This means more comfort in the upper thigh whilst maintaining a clean tapered leg look. 686 noted an increasing popularity for straighter cut pants for freestyle riding, and Ride are adding two new jacket styles – a roomy Parka Jacket and a tailored fishtail called the Roanoke. Colour Wear echo this theme with new tailored parkas too.

There are new fits galore at Sessions and The North Face with full retools, and Bonfire have a bunch of tweaks that promise to increase ergonomy. We also saw some interesting raglan cuts and tighter-sleeved jackets from Light.

COLOURS
Muted, vintage and drab colour palettes continue to be the most popular. Things are definitely lightening up though, best reflected at Brunotti. “Our colour card is based on natural sources, mountains, minerals and the forest”, explains the brand’s PR Manager, Anouk van Haaster. Rip Curl echo the natural palette inspiration with water, trees, ice and marble featuring heavily in their workbooks.

Earlier we mentioned the new collection from colour masters Norrøna, which is slightly less ‘yo’ than before. Their Tamok line is “darker, rawer and more toned down, appropriate for the true, gloomy northern-Norwegian winter”, according to PR & Marketing Manager, Amanda Lanza-Rygner. At North Face and Urban Beach, however, colour remains key. The pantone-style purity of Urban Beach’s colours offers some nice contrasts, whereas TNF told us that their riders prefer to let their riding – not their jacket – do the talking and are thus asking for one or two strong contrasting colours per piece instead of three or four in previous years.

From a manufacturing perspective it was interesting to see Light’s approach; they produce in a partially owned factory, which lets them do away with annoying minimums and sample room hold-ups. This allows them to offer way more options – they offer all their pants in 15 colourways and each jacket has four different variations. Next year their colour focus is on classic mountaineering tones as well as street style looks with a focus on melanges in khakis, burgundy and anthra.

Nitro

Finally in colours we’re seeing a wider adoption of good old white, particularly at fashion forward brands like Templeton and L1. “We’ve got lots of white”, explains L1’s Jon Kooley. “This was a demand from our team riders which felt reasonable as most snowboard outerwear tends to stay away from white altogether.”

PRINTS
Love them or hate them, there will always be a demand for the all-over-prints in snowboarding. Zimstern have one called Paperwork and Nitro have a cool sounding reflective print that looks tone-on-tone until the light hits it.

Airblaster have a cool pattern called Night Jungle – palms on a very dark background – and partner with Lucas Beaufort on a repeat camouflage pattern that’s called Critterflage. “It’s a reflection of Lucas imagining and creating friendly monsters and appears on first glance to be a classic vintage camo”, says Brand Manager Jesse Grandkoski. Homeschool keep the tropical thing going too with a Hawaiian Galaxy print showing watercolour florals on a subdued palette.

BASE LAYERS
First layers are a key part of every snowboarder’s riding gear, whether that means rails outside the sports centre at 2am or splitting yoyo couloir laps in a storm. Whilst not outerwear, baselayers ought to be represented in your shop. Shouldn’t they? Templeton’s Klaus Zenker doesn’t think so. “Base layers is a tough market and almost impossible to sell in average snowboard shops…plus we don’t want to offer the seventh copy of a Ninja Suit”. Airblaster are well aware of the impact their seminal piece has had on the worldwide chilling-gear market. “Despite a lot of mainstream brand corporate knock offs, The Ninja Suit is the original one piece hooded base layer suit and still the best long underwear on the planet”, they say.

There are some interesting new movements in baselayers next year. Brands we spoke to universally agree that merino is still the best stuff out there. Westbeach have an all-new merino line in three colours, super.natural are bringing out a 230gr merino Expedition Series with some cool prints and Horsefeathers go merino in various levels of colour insanity. There’s a full new baselayer line from Norrøna cantered on a merino-wrapped nylon thread. While we’re on the subject, it’s worth noting two interesting pieces of trivia about merino; firstly, the sheep that provides the yarn is one of the strangest-looking beasts you’ll ever come across, and secondly – and critically – a small percentage of people are allergic to it and can’t wear it.

Bonfire

With that in mind, it’s important to propose an alternative. Volcom’s baselayer programme gets a revamp using drirelease and recycled polyester, and Bleed have a cool base layer using Tencel, a material obtained from eucalyptus with soft skinfeel and high breathability. There’s also a new base layer from Picture using Polartec Powerwool. “We’ll be selling at 99€”, says Picture’s Durant. “We won’t do price point because we don’t want to sell low quality polyester products like our competitors – even if some of those are very popular”.

Consumers need educating in this category because the overriding consumer misunderstanding is that a 10€ baselayer from certain brands will do the same job as an expensive technical piece in the boardshop. Luckily established players are doing their best to help us. Pally’Hi are communicating around the benefits of their blend, which contains recycled materials and bamboo to their merino blend, whilst industry heavyweight Mons Royale are pushing their FWT partnership. Their signature Mons colours are very strong and – from next year – their higher necklines will offer face protection. They’re also shouting the merino story to whoever will listen. “Because merino comes at a premium price point and most base layers stay in your drawer unless you’re out on the hill, the customer doesn’t get great value. But if it’s styled so it looks good too and you can wear in on the street, to the bar or the gym it becomes a much more useful garment – more valuable. In the same way that the activewear trend sees people wearing their sportswear to the café, with a Mons garment you can wear it as activewear, casualwear or – of course – as a performance base layer”, shouts Mons Royale spokesman Richard Birkby.

Neff

KEY PRO MODELS
More than ever brands have been putting their riders in the driving seat in terms of product development, and also collaborating with the world’s finest shapers to create some unmissable pieces. Dakine’s four-pocket Control jacket was developed by Peter Line and Eric Pollard, and 686 are showing Tor Lundstrom’s first signature jacket called the Cult. There’s a Scotty Lago jacket from Neff called the Parker with Realtree camo, and Protest have a 10K piece designed with Nadasurf Powderboards. Frank April gets a signature 32 ensemble called the Kaldwell, and Eiki Helgason’s signature models – the Baker jacket and Cronus pant – are looking good over at Horsefeathers. Then there’s brother Halldor Helgason’s atrip brand, about which you’ll have heard unless you have been beneath a rock for the last two months.

Park-wise, Nitro have developed a jacket called the Shaper’s Choice with the qparks crew, and DC have added an outerwear component to their Snow Park Technologies partnership. “The #1 initiative was to create something that would support SPT’s standards in what they do on the hill. From hood to hem we worked very closely with Gunny to design something that we believe compliments both brands”, they told us.

CONCLUSION
So there you go; a ton of twists on classic trends, some pimpin’ base layers, lots of white, multi-density fabrics a go-go and a few new approaches to selling snowboard clothes. Over to Airblaster’s Jesse for the last word: “There are a lot of timeless elements that are considered ‘just trends’ or ‘played out’, but I think this is more a result of brands that try to hop on perceived trends, instead of manifesting timeless style through their design. Good music is always good music. Just because a certain genre gets popular doesn’t mean that it is no longer good”. Amen to that, brother.