To follow the goings on at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2009, visit the online digest of the OR Show Daily at outdoorretailer.com/showdaily.
This site will remain as an archive of the 2008 OR Summer Market Show Daily and will not be updated further. All posts below and on this site are from Summer Market 2008.
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Ryan Ocampo of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York was chosen by the esteemed panel of judges as the first winner of the Project OR design competition.
Following the award ceremony, many business cards from industry companies were finding their way into Ocampo’s and all of the other student designers’ hands. We heard that one was offered an internship on the spot by a very well known and established OR exhibiting apparel manufacturer. The future looks bright for each of these talented students judging by the comments made by the judges. Make sure to watch the 7 video episodes on the Outdoor Retailer website.
More photos after the link below.
Pat Frodel specializes in creating alternative sports brand awareness. As Dakine’s vice president of sales and marketing, he has helped build Dakine from a small Hawaiian surf leash manufacturer to a global action sports brand currently headquartered in Hood River, Oregon. Providing quality technical sports accessories to surfers, windsurfers, snowboarders, skiers, skateboarders, kiteboarders and mountain bikers, Dakine has asserted itself as a leader among action sports manufacturers. Designing everything from surf leashes to winter sports gloves to technical winter daypacks, Dakine is regarded as an innovator in its field. Dakine products are available at many specialty retailers.
Why did Dakine choose Hood River as the company’s U.S. headquarters?
No fuss, no muss is the mantra at Concept III Textiles, which recently launched a waxed cotton look that is fully washable. The new Driden finish, from British Millerain, is made with a special synthetic wax that has the look, feel, and function of authentic waxed cotton.
While traditional waxes are applied as a coating, they must be reapplied to the finished garment from time to time to maintain its look and weather resistance. The Driden finish is permanently infused into the fabric, making it washable and applicable to lighter-weight fabrics.
After five million acres of native bamboo was wiped out in the Mississippi Delta during the last century, U.S.-grown bamboo has been forgotten—until now.
In partnership with Bridgedale, one of the world’s leading sock manufacturers, Booshoot’s Jackie Heinricher is promoting bamboo as a solution to climate change, a replacement for non-sustainable textiles, and a way to bring employment to the depressed Mississippi Delta.
“I started in horticulture, trying to look at noninvasive species, but also looking at timber bamboo,” Heinricher said. “We take a piece of plant, put in our ‘special sauce’ (a proprietary piece of Booshoot’s intellectual property), and grow it in test tubes.”
So far Red Ledge rainwear has survived the Bering Sea and direct competition for product placement on the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch.” But will it survive potentially searing reactions to its new website from outdoor extremists?
The site pokes fun at an audience that gets its kicks from routinely cheating death in the outdoors. Red Ledge, which draws a less-than-subtle parallel between wealth and outdoor extremism, remains loyal to its modest price point and apparel that is intended for people who live in the real world.
Slacklining may have been invented by dirt-bag rock climbers, but now it’s going into the mainstream big-time. At least four companies are showing slackline kits at Summer Market.
A slackline is a length of nylon webbing stretched between two trees or other anchors to create a low-level tightrope. Experts can do spins, flips and other tricks on the bouncing line.
Forget recycle. The new buzzword when it comes to sustainability is reuse. Nalgene, with the City of Davis, Calif., today announced a partnership designed to eliminate single-serving plastic bottled water.
The announcement is the first salvo in Nalgene’s national Community Sustainability Program, which aims to help communities reduce their carbon footprints through small personal efforts—such as choosing a reusable Nalgene bottle over one-off plastics—that add up to make significant changes.
Mountaineering and other outdoor sports may be off stage during the Beijing Olympic, but the outdoor market in China is quickly growing. The market is currently estimated at between $300 or $400 million, with predicted annual growth of between 25 and 30 percent.
An estimated 4,000 Chinese stores are either specialty outdoor dealers or general retailers with significant shelf space for outdoor products. Western brands like Columbia, The North Face and Black Diamond have made concerted efforts to sell to Chinese outdoor enthusiasts through these outlets and their own retail outlets. Now, Chinese manufacturers are going the other way—by taking their own brands to Western markets.
Despite a shaky economy, rising fuel costs and low consumer confidence, Outdoor Retailer Summer Market ‘08 ran as well as it has, if not better, than in rosier economic times.
Numbers were on a par with last year, with an estimated 22,000 attendees and 6,300 buyers crowding the Salt Palace. They came to see what 1,020 exhibitors had to offer. The show sprawled over an expanded 438,000 square feet of space.
“We’re almost in a bubble,” show director Kenji Haroutunian said. “This show has been just as good as years past. Some have even told me it’s the ‘best show ever.’ There has been action in all parts of the show from paddlesports to suppliers. The show has showcased he strength of the industry.”