AnyTides Outerwear
Founded: 2020 Burlington Vt
The Start
AnyTides first inception was in 2019. At the time, there was no one who really filled the the gap in the outerwear industry for oversized terrain park styled snowpants.
Here you can see the flagship pant that our community fell in love with. We started in the fall of 2020 with our minimum viable product; a two layered RipStop snowpant with an elastic waistband, elastic ankle cuffs, drawstring, and only one hand pocket. The pants shown above are our V.2 and V.3 that featured 2 hand pockets.
Part of our innovation was mainly the excessively oversized fit, mixed with the introduction of a fully cinched waistband and ankles. Before us there was really no one else with this look, which distinguished us. We did not invent the ‘jogger’ but we were the first to commercialize the look in the ski industry.
Having this look was something that greatly distinguished us from the competition.
In-House Production
From the beginning, clothing brands can be expensive to launch. Even if you find a way to finance it, there is the time factor of waiting on the return from the factory.
With all of these variables, Jackson and I decided that I would sew all the pants by hand. This came with lots of benefits, like giving us complete control over the quality and approach to construction.
We started with the single pocket pant at the beginning of season 1, and by the end we had sold almost 100 pairs of pants at $180 a piece. That’s when we really started to have fun with our redesigns and upgrades to the pant features.
We kept the original Apparatus pant true to it’s original light weight, easy-construct design, but we now had the opportunity to release ‘odd’ small batch niche pants.
Year 2 at AnyTides
Year one was Jackson and I living together, working at a ski shop, planning and designing during the day, then I would sew the pants at night. Sometimes I would sew all through the night if I had to and drop the orders at UPS right when they opened at 8am.
Year 2 had a very different feel. We figured out that we could run a pre-order and sell pants in August with the promise of delivering in November. We sold 75 pairs of pants out of the gate and we were doing exclusively in-house production at the time.
Now we had rented a house with another friend, so we had a 3 person lease. By October there were 7 people living in this house. Being in a ski town there was no lack of young homeless friends. We had a guy sleeping in the basement, we had 2 friends in the living room, and another with his bed in our garage. At one point we had every single one of them helping us crank out pants. By selling pre-orders we generated our own operating capital, we could pay everyone pretty well to help assemble pants. That was a task but in the end it paid off.
By the end of season 2 in the market, we had sold about 250 units and climbed our price to $225. I was proud of that because now, in the same niche, snow pants range from about $150 - $200. We were selling at a premium for a product that was actually far more basic than a pair of The North Face pants for $150.
This is a photo of me organizing the packing lists for the initial production sprint for Fall 2021. You can see in the back, a stack of snow pants ready to by shipped.
Domestic & Ineternational Manufacturing
Starting year three we sought production from a domestic factory in Fall River MA. That worked pretty well as we started to sell more units, but it was cutting into our margin significantly. That’s when we started to look outward towards foreign manufacturing as a realistic option.
That’s when we found Purnaa. They are one of the most ethically responsible manufacturers in Nepal, and they made a decent product. They did good work but also taught me of typical fashion business; for example, sending a prototype that has nicer construction than the Top of Production sample. Light treachery is common for the international marketplace.
Here’s a photo of myself and Pat Sheils wearing a hoodie I produced.
Partnerships
During my time running AnyTides I made some absolutely incredible connections. One of my favorites was this photo of myself with Pat Shiels. Pat is someone who also fell in love with skiing at a young age and grew to be the head cinematographer for Ski The East.
We are great friends, but he also did great work over the years documenting skiing all over the east coast. I attribute this to one of the reasons AnyTides was able to break out a bit. Pat filmed the most talented skiers on the east and that included my Burlington crew of terrain park and street skiers.
What Pat did for Ski the East was really building a platform to unite the community in New England and Canada, as well as create a stage for athletes to come together and be discovered.
One of my favorite memories is going into a ski shop with my cousin and seeing the videos that Pat had filmed being played on loop. When I was 8 I was enamored by the movies playing in ski shops with their high flying antics, and here I was twenty years later seeing myself and my constituates on the same TV.
click into this picture for the full video!
J Skis Collaboration
Jason Levinthal is an absolute legend in the ski industry. He was in the very first Winter X Games as well as the Euro X Games. He also commercialized the first twin tip ski and revolutionized the sport we all enjoy. He went on to start Line Skis, and sold it to Amer Sports who also owns K2 Sports.
I met up with Jason on his latest endeavor for his independent ski company J Skis. He needed help with his yearly April Fools promotional stunt and heard that I was the guy to talk to.
I of course had known who Jason was since I was just 13 years old. He was such an incredibly influencial person to the version skiing that my friends and I worshiped as kids. This was an incredible opportunity.
He came by to my apartment with all his materials and had me create an outfit that was an omage to the ghost of years past. In the mid 2000’s tall t-shirts were the height of skiing fashion, so I made a jacket that would give the effect of wearing multiple oversized t-shirts underneath. This was to match the obsurdity of Jason’s modular ski system joke.
Athlete Focus Group
During my time running AnyTides I made some absolutely incredible connections. One of my favorites was this photo of myself with Pat Shiels. Pat is someone who also fell in love with skiing at a young age and grew to be the head cinematographer for Ski The East.
We are great friends, but he also did great work over the years documenting skiing all over the east coast. I attribute this to one of the reasons AnyTides was able to break out a bit. Pat filmed the most talented skiers on the east and that included my Burlington crew of terrain park and street skiers.
What Pat did for Ski the East was really building a platform to unite the community in New England and Canada, as well as create a stage for athletes to come together and be discovered.
One of my favorite memories is going into a ski shop with my cousin and seeing the videos that Pat had filmed being played on loop. When I was 8 I was enamored by the movies playing in ski shops with their high flying antics, and here I was twenty years later seeing myself and my constituates on the same TV.
Content Gathering
Jason Levinthal is an absolute legend in the ski industry. He was in the very first Winter X Games as well as the Euro X Games. He also commericalized the first twin tip ski
New Product Development
During my time running AnyTides I made some absolutely incredible connections. One of my favorites was this photo of myself with Pat Shiels. Pat is someone who also fell in love with skiing at a young age and grew to be the head cinematographer for Ski The East.
We are great friends, but he also did great work over the years documenting skiing all over the east coast. I attribute this to one of the reasons AnyTides was able to break out a bit. Pat filmed the most talented skiers on the east and that included my Burlington crew of terrain park and street skiers.
What Pat did for Ski the East was really building a platform to unite the community in New England and Canada, as well as create a stage for athletes to come together and be discovered.
One of my favorite memories is going into a ski shop with my cousin and seeing the videos that Pat had filmed being played on loop. When I was 8 I was enamored by the movies playing in ski shops with their high flying antics, and here I was twenty years later seeing myself and my constituates on the same TV.
Custom work
Another incredible experience was making custom pieces, like this space jacket, for a singular person.
Designing pieces for production is fun, but getting to push the boundaries without money being the driver is always rewarding.
One of the final products I developed was my duvet puff jacket. Each jacket was reversible, with matching reversible puff pants. These delightful snow suits were hand sewn by myself, and stuffed with goose down feathers. They are by far, my favorite product that I ever took to market.
That’s all for now but if you would like to see more about AnyTides, you can see the real time progression on instagram at here.