“Urban outdoor” is a concept with increasing traction in fashion. Athleisure seems to be outgrowing the tracksuit—or maybe designers are just tired of making iterations of the comfy classic—and has moved on to borrowing details from utilitarian workwear and functional outdoor gear, and using them as decorative flourishes on casual sportswear. In fashion, functionality can sometimes come second to function. Dressing for a night on the town is different than doing so for a trek in the mountains, when a pair of pants can be all that’s between the wearer and frostbite. Designing for the latter requires a specific set of competencies. “You need to work around many restrictions,” explained J.Lindeberg creative director Jens Werner in a recent interview, “and at the end, the garment cannot be compromised, it needs to perform. Especially when it comes to technical design.”
Maybe it has something to do with living in a digital age, but increasingly, functionality (or the appearance of it) looks right to the eye, whether on a technical or fashionable garment. That point was driven home by the Urban Outdoor runway show Scandinavian Man organized in Stockholm during Fashion Week, in which models wore pieces from Nordic outdoor brands. Some, like Helly Hansen, are household names, while others have niche cult followings: Klättermusen is apparently huge in Asia, but most were unfamiliar, at least to this American viewer, and that was a good thing. It’s so rare these days to make local discoveries. (Also eye-opening was the existence of ski skirts.) “The purpose of the show was to manifest the enormous potential in the history and heritage of these labels,” says editor in chief Konrad Olsson, who believes they have a lot to offer “in terms of product and sustainability.”
Fashion editor/stylist Robin Douglas Westling mixed and matched pieces from various brands to create alluring looks that demonstrated that there can be inherent style in functional gear, and that it translates from the slope to the streets. “The show is simply Scandinavian Man’s vision of what outdoor could be. We wanted to show that there is much style to get out of these products if you just present them in a different way,” explained Olsson. Mission accomplished.
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