K2 has decided that their reach in the snow sports world just wasn't wide enough. For 2013 they'll be offering an extensive line of outerwear. By extensive we mean they'll be offering both ski and snowboard clothing. This isn't K2's first attempt at clothing. If you remember they offered snowboard clothing for a number of years. After deciding it wasn't doing well enough for them, they dropped it, only to buy Planet Earth a couple of years later.
They're set to go at it again. This time they brought in the big guns. They've hired Apparel Director Mark Valdez, who spent the past 20 years in sourcing, product development and production with Nike; David Peterson, category merchandising manager, who has a background in the ski industry and spend the last 16 years merchandising at Eddie Bauer; and Diane Sheehan Egnatz, senior outerwear developer, who brings eight years of experience developing technical outerwear in an athlete focused environment. With a team like this we're pretty sure it's going to awesome stuff. Oh, and did we mention that K2 has also signed a license agreement with W.L. Gore to collaborate on product development throughout the outerwear collection. Yup, not only is it gonna look good, it's gonna be bomber.
As for their team of athletes, artist and filmmaker Eric Pollard, famous for bringing his fluid park-style riding to the backcountry, has signed a long term contract as K2 Outerwear's first flagship athlete. The Oregon native, who has already committed almost a year to the development of the line, is heavily involved in the look, fit and function of K2's initial apparel collection. We were wondering why we didn't seem him on the Dakine clothing team roster, now we know why.
Word on the street is that K2 will start previewing it next fall, so we're guessing you're gonna have to wait another year before you start to see any of it at your local mountain.
via Outdoor Magazine