ISPO Trend Report

The winter 2008 ISPO was a great show...there was so much to see! The show is absolutely massive, with many different trends popping up in the various display halls. The look from the ski area to the snowboard varied widely, with some brands focusing on performance, and others pulling out all the stops to be the trendiest.

One trend that seemed to gap the ski/snowboard boundry was the use of bright and neon 'pop' colors. One thing we saw everywhere was the use of these bright tones as accents on jackets (zippers, pulls, linings, drawcords.) Or as accesories like hats and goggle being paired with a neutral jacket.



It was fun to see some retro styles making a comeback on the ski side. We noticed that Patagonia was offing more retro pieces, harkening back to their original styles. This jacket even has the original Patagonia label.


Classic old-school brand Powderhorn looked great at the show. Our friend Teri did a lot of the designs! Their use of 70s styling and colors was fun, and they had some really nice leather accents on quite a few of their pieces. (Plus Meghan designed these hats.)



On the ski side, we saw a lot of bright, pure colors, and not many prints. Bright, contrasting waterproof zippers continues to be popular.
Colors at Arcteryx:

At Helly Hansen:


One brand that we really liked was Cross. They are a Scandinavian brand, and had a nice mix of fashion and performance.


Nike ACG displayed an interesting collaboration with Pendleton wool. Pendleton is know for their high quality wool fabrics, and classic navajo blanket patterns. Nike teamed up with fellow Oregon based Pendleton to create this custom navajo fabric, very cool.



On the snowboard side, one of our favorites was 686. They offered some great prints, has interesting trims and details, and more of their own style than the some other board brands. This digital print of x-ray images was very cool.


686 also did a nice plaid. There have been so many plaids over the last couple of seasons that all look the same, it was nice to see this fresh approach. This jacket also has cool fabric covered buttons and metal rivet details.


Burton's Analog line offered this jacket, a digital print of buffalo plaid. If you look closely, you can see that all of the pockets and trims are actually printed on! Digital printing is steadily gaining a following, and with no limit to the colors or amount of detail it can produce, it will be interesting to see what happens with this technology.


One trend that was hard to ignore... the 80s are back in a big way. Lots of neon colors, especially paired with black. We saw a lot of bold, geometric prints and patterns, and much less of the neutral tones and menswear inspired fabrics of seasons past. Get ready for next winter to be bright!
Quicksilver:



Classic gaper style from Killy:


80's inspired board graphics from Rossignol:

Beers, Brats, and Beemers

Guten Tag! Well, we made it back in one piece from our big trip to Germany to see the IPSO show last week in Munich. We had a great trip, saw some cool things at the show, and soaked up a little European culture touring around Munich. We're putting together a trend report of all the new and exciting things we saw at the show, but first, some of the fun stuff!
We spend the day before the show seeing some sights, and took a trip out to the brand new BMW Welt building, part of the BMW factory. This place is pretty amazing, worth the trip for any design or architecture fan. We got to check some new car models, some concept cars and ideas, and shop in the cool design book shop.

Yeah, I'd trade my Subaru in for one of these please...


We even got to 'ride' some of the awesome BMW motorcycles on display. This one was a huge Mad Max type of road bike with lots of industrial looking boxes on it.

Off-roading, Beemer style...

Here is a view inside the BMW Welt building, pictures do not do it justice

A view of BMW headquarters across the street


Right next to the BMW factory is the Olympic park, home of the infamous 1972 Summer Olympics, where terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. (Check out the movie Munich about the incident.) The Olympic park was a very surreal place. It was like a ghost town, even on a nice sunny day. The glass spider-web like structures were interesting, but very dated looking. Kinda creepy!

The old ticket booths are still there!


Here is a sign telling visitors not to sled or ski down a hill right onto the Autobahn! How do you say 'Duh!' in German?

Apart from the sightseeing, we made sure to take in some of the local cuisine. Meghan tried to sample every German beer possible. In Munich, beer drinking is not just a leisure activity, it is a serious sport! We saw people drinking huge mugs of beer starting first thing in the morning, with their breakfast pastry. There was plenty of places to grab traditional Bavarian fare, we tried some of the sausages, but stayed far away from the the local favorite, boiled pigs knuckles...yikes!
Not on the South Beach diet...

Another fun sight was people getting ready for upcoming Carnival week. There were plenty of costume displays in the department stores. It seemed to be more like Mardi Gras than Halloween, with lots of wacky costumes, nothing scary. This one was pretty funny, kind of a Mexican Disco Hippie, maybe it's a German thing.