Items from The North Face’s collaboration with Japanese brand Hyke.
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https://scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/2186798/north-face-and-patagonia-big-winners-new-urban-hiker-trend Fashion & Beauty
North Face and Patagonia big winners in the new ‘urban hiker’ trend
- Shoppers are dropping hundreds of US dollars on high-end fleeces that are in vogue both on fashion runways and in the mainstream
- Fashion brands such as Zara, Madewell and Urban Outfitters have also jumped on the bandwagon, creating their own takes on the style
Nuptse jacket from The North Face’s autumn-winter 2018 velvet collection.
It’s not your imagination – fleeces and high-performance jackets are everywhere right now.
According to fashion search platform Lyst, it’s because the “urban hiker” style is in vogue.
Earlier this month, Lyst released its latest ranking of fashion’s “hottest brands and products”. Items from The North Face and Patagonia came in second and third place, respectively, on the menswear list, beating out Versace, Fendi and Givenchy. The two items featured were The North Face’s Nuptse puffer jacket and Patagonia’s Retro-X fleece.
Patagonia and The North Face have experienced explosive success in recent years as they sit at the intersection of outerwear, normcore and streetwear. The latter two are prominent trends in fashion at the moment.
Part of Patagonia’s success has stemmed from marketing itself as being anti-consumerist and encouraging customers to only buy products that last.
“We can’t control whether or not our brand is deemed cool or uncool, and we really don’t care,” Mark Little, Patagonia’s director of men’s sportswear and surf apparel, told GQ in 2017.
A spokesperson for Patagonia recently said that sales have quadrupled in the past 10 years, but wouldn’t divulge exact figures because it is a private company. According to The Guardian the company had sales of US$800 million in 2016, which was twice as much as in 2010.
A Patagonia fleece jacket.
A men’s look from The North Face’s collaboration with Sacai.
Meanwhile, The North Face, which is owned by VF – parent company of Lee, Wrangler and Vans – has transitioned from being seen as a purely practical brand to one that makes a fashion statement.
“Their mainline products are seemingly so unassuming, so banal, so practical, that each owner or subculture has been able to project their own identity onto those three simple curved lines and sans-serif text,” the British culture magazine Dazed wrote in 2016.
In its most recent quarterly results, The North Face’s revenue in the US grew by 15 per cent for the quarter and 8 per cent for the first nine months of 2018 on a constant currency basis.
As the runway has started to take notice of the urban hiker trend and shoppers have dropped hundreds of dollars on high-end fleeces, so the mainstream has begun to chime in, too.
Urban Outfitters fleece jacket.
Fashion brands such as Zara, Madewell, Outdoor Voices and Urban Outfitters have all jumped on the bandwagon and created their own versions of this outdoor get-up, specifically the fleece.
Experts say that this trend has no signs of slowing down in 2019 and is permeating other categories.
Dan Bisson, editor of accessories and footwear at forecasting firm WGSN, recently told the website Who What Wear that “dad sneakers” – arguably the most questionable trend of 2018 – are next in line.
“I believe that the rise in outdoor hiking trends will introduce the trail sneaker as the next ‘must-have’ sneaker for 2019,” he said. “This will replace some of the thick-soled designs, appealing to not only the city-goers but those wanting to explore country landscapes.”