OR Show Daily Summer Market 2009 Digest

Smith Evolve
Smith has been one of very few eyewear manufacturers to integrate environmentally responsible materials into its products. Last season, Smith introduced the Evolve series built with recycled materials while providing the same performance and style as the rest of its line. At Summer Market the Sun Valley, Idaho, manufacturer upped the ante by incorporating a bio-based nylon alternative, Rilsan Clear, which is derived from non-GMO castor seeds. “Rislan Clear bears resilience, density, and shape-memory properties comparable to the Grilamid TR90 we presently use in most Smith sunglasses, but it doesn’t sacrifice any of the fit or feel,” said Smith’s Greg Randolph. Booth #31027E/31030E

Geomate Jr.
Want a fun and inexpensive way of getting children outdoors? Get them a Geomate Jr., a full-featured geocacher designed for kids but usuable by anybody. The Geomate Jr. comes with a database of 250,000 geocaches in North America. Update Kits, sold separately, are available for other countries or for updated North American lists. “We want to create something that helps kids and families enjoy the outdoors,” the company’s Joanna Vaughn said. The Geocache Jr. is manufactured by Apisphere and retails for $69.95. Booth #BR521
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Kids on the Loose: Retailers paying attention to demographic trends have been finding their way to Lisa Vinciguerra’s booth to check out clothes designed for little people—a phrase she uses to describe her apparel line for kids newborn to age 7. There appears to be a mini-baby boom underway and some retailers, she explained, are expanding in this niche. Outdoor enthusiasts want to buy outdoor clothes for their kids, clothes that fit properly and are made with fabrics that mom and dad wear.

Lisa, a former pro snowboarder, launched Outside Baby in Hood River, Ore. She first exhibited at OR in 2002 and brings a wealth of apparel experience to the baby-wear market, having developed outerwear for Salomon and later Adidas.

“Retailers see this category as an opportunity,” she said. “What we’re hearing from them is that kids are a new market,” she added. Her company is small (three employees) but she sells to REI, backcountry.com and has an active retail base. As for that impending baby boom, Lisa practices what she preaches. She has a seven-year-old daughter and is expecting her second child in November. Drop by, say hi, and see her wares at Booth #BR309.

Silk Dreams in a Sack: Chelsea Morgan had an unconventional childhood. Few kids have a mother who nabs a Fulbright scholarship and then leads the family to China where she teaches English. And not every kid goes to a Chinese elementary school for two years and years later still speaks passable Chinese. “My parents were always up for adventure,” she said. But that’s just the beginning. Nancy Morgan, Chelsea’s mom, would get cotton sheets and sew them together to make light sleeping sacks for the family as they traveled around Asia. And because silk was so readily available, she started making sleep sacks out of silk.

Fast Forward: Chelsea is now teaching 7th grade in Ashland, Ore., when a box of silk sacks arrives at her home and, at night, she hammers the phone trying to sell them. One day, an editor from Sunset magazine writes an article about her silk sacks. The rest, as they say, is history. DreamSacks became a commercial hit. Today, Chelesea is staffing the DreamSacks Booth, #35206. Come check out the expanded line of bamboo-fabric lifestyle apparel.

Sweet Dreams on the Floor: Any port in a storm; any floor at a trade show. That’s Malcom Daly’s motto.  Daly, Trango’s founder and executive director of Paradox Sports, arrived in The Great Salt Lick in need of a room. He found one nearby, but at $140 a night, it was time to share. So Daly and two others hunkered down in one of Hilton’s finest for the duration. Daly claims to love his Therma-Rest spread out on the floor. But it IS a Hilton, and there is a level of service that’s delivered whether expected or not. He came back to his room to find his Therma-Bed fully made up and ready for a full frontal flop.

Margo Clark, Wind River Gear,
Dubois, Wyo.
“I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw at the show and I’m really positive for the future. My reps are giving me good reports. Not only is no one going belly-up, companies are at least stable. There’s a lot of optimism.”

Scott Ford, Cole Sport,
Park City, Utah
“I’m cautiously optimistic. You never know what the economy’s going to do. But the industry seems to be doing more refining and making an effort to knowing your customer even better and delivering what your customer wants.”

Heather Svahn, Mountain Hardware,
Truckee, Calif.
“I’ve been picking up on a good feeling of optimism. I think manufacturers are excited to offer new categories that are more price-sensitive, and product selection has been stepped up. There’s general excitement for good products at good prices. For our customers it’s not about spending a lot of money for the most expensive thing. People want value, and I see companies giving that.”

Steve Sutorius, Wildernest,
Port Townsend, Wash.
“I think the worst is behind us, but people are being conservative. I was just at Bass, and they’re lowering prices. Companies are scaling back lines, which I appreciate as a retailer. We’re not taking chances or hunting for the new latest and greatest. We’re sticking with what we know is good and trusted.”

Adam Sanders, Take a Hike,
Rapid City, S.D.
“Our shop is going to be expanding and picking up a lot more vendors. Our customers put a premium on high quality and environmental consciousness, and they’re intelligent consumers looking for quality. So we’re weeding through the crap to get the good stuff.”

Andy Chase, Out ‘n Back,
Orem, Utah
“It’s just the status quo. No one’s taking risks and everyone’s gone conservative. Nothing is jumping out as the next hot, new thing, which is really what we need right now. Instead, it’s pretty lackluster with safe products that are maybe repackaged in a new color but there’s not much innovation and probably won’t be until the economy improves.”

“I want to flip the image of disability on its head,” said Chris Waddell as he wheeled through the Salt Palace with a charming smile on his face.

The founder of the One Revolution Foundation is here looking for sponsors for his latest project, a September climb of Kilimanjaro that will be made into a full-length documentary.

“The trip will be an extension of what I did as an athlete,” Waddell said. “I want to represent a lot of disabled people—there are 600 million worldwide—who do not have a voice.”

If successful, Waddell will become the first paraplegic to summit the tallest mountain in Africa unassisted. His team will consist of guide Dave Penney, two friends and four film producers. He calls the project One Revolution, since it is a part of what he dubs The Mobility Revolution, a drive to build handcycles for the disabled in developing countries across the planet.
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Scarpa designed its new mountaineering boots, the Phantom 6000 and Phantom Guide, with input from two of its best athletes—climbers Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten. Steck set speed records on the north faces of the Eiger, Matterhorn and Grandes Jorasses. The innovations in the boots speak to their aesthetic.

“Scarpa has always been based in mountaineering. It’s in our DNA,” said Kim Miller, the company’s CEO.

“Mountaineering trends have progressed and boots need to progress. Today in climbing, fast-and-light has gone to a new level. You have climbers doing something in a day that used to take a week.”

In response to those trends, the new boots cater to intense activity. The micro-porous polyurethane midsole insert provides 30 percent more shock absorption than EVA used in standard mountaineering boots. This creates substantial energy savings since it results in decreased muscle fatigue when carrying a heavy pack or traveling in rough terrain.

The Phantom Guide features a new SCARPA/Vibram TT sole, designed so that it effectively concentrates power over the big toe and edging platform for climbing rock or using crampon points. The sole is also thinner in the forefoot for better climbing sensitivity.

The Phantom Guide also feature a new rear elastic rand allows a super efficient heel lock. It improves performance for all facets of climbing, but especially when using crampon front points on technical terrain.

“You need the right tool for the job,” Kim said. “Mountaineering contains everything from high-altitude climbing to alpine rock and we you need boots that speak to those needs.”

They toiled for 48 hours in the windowless Design Center, sewing machines furiously at work, surrounded by scraps, patterns, and extra material.

On Thursday, the five design students competing for the top prize in Project OR tabled their scissors. After a nerve-racking 90 minutes, a panel of judges handed down a verdict: Lindsey Schuyler, a design student at Florida State University, is the latest champion of the OR Summer Market’s innovative design contest.

“I’m completely blown away,” Schuyler. “I feel like every design here was amazing, and I had no idea I even had an edge.”

Schuyler’s winning design was a feminine quilted wind shirt made out of Brookline silk-like fabric. Insulated with temperature-regulating Thinsulate at the core, her design incorporated reflective glow trim around the neck and at the pockets. The garment is wind resistant and highly breathable.

Runner-up Wildrose Hamilton showed what she can do under a tight deadline. Hamilton won the design component of the contest on Tuesday. Her jacket featured reflective graphics she designed herself.

“It takes so much effort to make a garment,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know if anyone understands the mini-crises involved. But I realized that if you put everything aside, you can complete a major project in two days.”

Now in its third iteration, Project OR unleashes the creativity of students who are selected to travel from their home schools and vie for the top prize in an effort to infuse the outdoor industry with fashionable garments that perform as fabulously as they look.

Students can select materials from any of the participating Project OR manufacturers and they are limited only by the scope of the project. This season they were instructed to build an insulated, eco-friendly woman’s wind shirt.

Coordinator Eric Steele helped launch the competition and said the quality of design and final products continue to improve with each one. He complimented this year’s all-women field for its energy, commitment, and assiduity.
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When Lisa Welch was pregnant with her first child seven years ago, she maintained her longtime running habit through Colorado’s foothills. Though her changing body forced adjustments in her regimen, the biggest challenge of all was finding technical maternity clothes.

“I went to buy maternity running pants and all I could find was velour,” Welch said. “It was frustrating.”

Her college roommate, Julie Hill, was experiencing the same problems at about the same time. So the two athletic women ditched their careers and launched the first exclusive maternity activewear, BornFit (Booth #BR639).

Their line of pants, shorts (both running and paddling), skorts, shirts, jackets, and nursing sports bras are made from high quality spandex/polyester blends that retain their shape, even as they expand to accommodate a pregnant belly.

“We believe it is important to exercise throughout your pregnancy and wanted to give women the same clothes we wanted to wear when we were pregnant,” said Hill.

The clothes are longer in front than most women’s apparel and incorporate strategically placed pockets and wicking material. They are casual enough that women can wear them throughout the day, even after exercise.

With separate lifestyle and fitness lines, the company is broadening its reach to a variety of pregnant women, whether they run marathons are are new to fitness.

“All of us are born fit,” said Welch. “So we should live fit and stay fit.”

Currently BornFit is available at the company’s website, select maternity wear shops and in specialty running shops around the country. But Welch and Hill see an opportunity to expand into the general outdoor market.

“So many women in the industry are active and as they have babies, there is a real need to find active maternity clothes that fit well and make them feel good about their bodies,” said Welch.

If you see Robb Shurr roaming the halls of the Salt Palace, you may get nervous. It won’t be Shurr’s impish personality that will put you on guard, however. The former Access Fund and Ojai communications director has a new mission: He wants to ascertain how green you truly are.

Shurr’s new company, Kickstand Communications, a research and media group from Boulder, Colo., is currently undertaking a research effort to “map the green conversation” in the outdoor industry.

The research involves interviewing hundreds of manufacturers and retailers.

“The goal is to seek to understand the pulse of the conversation, discover best practices and identify leadership opportunities around sustainable concepts,” Shurr said. “We are in the early stages of collecting stories and finding the pulse of what sustainability means to the outdoor industry. We still have a lot of interviews left with retailers, consumers and manufacturers.”
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