Merino wool has been gaining popularity in the outdoor industry for a while now. More consumers are becoming familiar with the material beyond base layers, and more brands are turning to it for its sustainability and circularity applications.
Up-and-coming brand Artilect Studio is fully capitalizing on that trend with its apparel and outwear, and co-owner Trent Bush sees merino wool products as having a lot of growth potential.
“From a performance perspective, there aren’t really a whole lot of other natural fibers that can bring that level of performance,” he said. “Merino fiber in particular is really well-suited for moisture management and thermal regulation at the highest level.”
Bush founded the company in 2020 in Boulder, Colorado, along with Corry Taylor, a distributor and brand owner based in the United Kingdom. Taylor specializes in distribution across Europe.
The brand sells into a “few hundred” doors internationally, according to Bush.
“We’ve been very specific and focused on trying to roll out in a meaningful way that we can actually support,” he said.
The Daily spoke with Bush about how he got into the business, the condition of the market, dealing with PFAS, and the brand’s retail strategy.
Born Into It
Bush says he was “born into the outdoor industry.” His father worked at innovative outdoor companies in the ‘60s and ‘70s like Frostline and Gerry.
“It was just part of my life, since birth,” he said. “Then, as any good kid does, they rebel against their parents. Where my dad was really into backpacking and camping and fishing, I got into skateboarding and snowboarding.”
Trent Bush, co-owner of Artilect Studio. Photo courtesy of Artilect Studio.
In high school in the early 1990s, Bush started his own snowboarding brand, Twist Clothing Company, with his brother and friends. That launched his career in the outdoor industry, leading to working at iconic companies such as Burton Snowboards, Fjallraven, Mountain Hardwear, and Black Diamond.
A Tough Business Picture
Business in recent months has been “incredibly challenging,” Bush said. “Maybe one of the most challenging market situations we’ve seen after decades of doing this. If it’s not on sale, people aren’t buying it.”
He estimates there is double or triple the amount of product that’s needed in the global marketplace.
“Full-price product is very difficult to sell, especially if you’re a new brand and nobody’s really ever heard of you,” Bush said.
To compensate, Artilect has tried to emphasize the user experience and target people who are looking for “new and next technologies,” according to Bush.
Photo by Alison Vagnini. Photo courtesy of Artilect Studio.
So far the brand is doing well across Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. Bush said the U.S. market has been more difficult and that the brand is “competing against louder voices.”
Overall, sales are up year-over-year as Artilect has expanded its base-layer offering to what the company calls a “system” that includes mid-layers, jackets, and accessories.
“We offer a complete apparel system based on equal amounts of protection from outside elements in and from the microclimate you create inside out – thermal regulation and moisture management,” Bush said.
According to Bush, Artilect’s product is proving itself, but the macroeconomic climate is slowing down its growth.
PFAS Competition
On top of the post-pandemic supply and demand headwinds, the outdoor industry is facing another major market challenge: PFAS, or forever chemicals.
This year brands are pushing to offload PFAS-containing products ahead of looming regulations and deadlines from retailers like REI.
Bush expects there to be a “crazy flood of inexpensive products in the marketplace that won’t be able to be sold within a couple of seasons.”
Photo by Alison Vagnini. Photo courtesy of Artilect Studio.
As a relatively new company, Artilect designed its products without PFAS “as much as humanly possible” from the get-go, Bush said. Certain suppliers still used PFAS in their zipper paint, for example, but Artilect mitigated PFAS use from Day One, he added.
“Now, when we have inventory in stock, we’re not in the same position of having to liquidate it at any cost, not only at a loss to us, but also to the entire industry,” Bush said. “At least our product can sit on the shelf if need be for a season and we don’t have a ticking clock against us to offload it.”
Retail Strategy
Artilect’s retail approach is to focus primarily on retail partners rather than selling direct-to-consumer.
“We’ve tried to really find scale early on with retail partners,” Bush said. “The way I look at it, having gone through so many cycles and the introduction of e-commerce, the retailers that remain have done a very good job of building their own communities.”
Those retailers have the one-on-one relationships to deliver the right product to the right consumer base, according to Bush. The company focuses on outdoor specialty retailers that sell performance-driven brands at a higher price point.
At Sunlight Sports in Cody, Wyoming, Principal Wes Allen said his store will start carrying Artilect’s base layer program this fall.
“I really like that they’re owned by a person, not a corporation,” Allen said. “I really like that they’re thoughtfully designed and a very high-quality product.”
The brand is “predominately wholesale,” Bush said, with a very small percentage of e-commerce.
“We don’t sell on Amazon. We’re not focused on trying to be the number one competitor to our retail base,” he added. “We’re really just trying to support the retailers and work with them to make sure their customers are getting the right product, for the right reasons, from the right people.”
Bart Schaneman can be reached at bart@ordaily.outdoorretailer.com.
