Plainly speaking, 25 years is a long time. So many things - brilliant and shameful and extraordinary things - happen in a quarter century. In snowboarding, 25 years is an eternity. About half as long as the concept has even existed. For an independent brand to sustain past the two decade mark, many components are needed: a bit of luck, for sure, a continuous flow of creativity and forward-thinking direction and at the very core of it, an undying passion to subsist and remain an influencer within an activity that is more lifeblood than casual hobby. It's that passion that carries a brand through the unavoidable peaks and valleys of boarding. It's a voyage that can be easy when the sailing is smooth, but one which requires a steadfast captain to weather the imminent heavier storms. We are stoked that Horsefeathers has some solid folks at the helm.
As an independent mag also celebrating an anniversary (20 years since the inception of our brand), we hold immense respect for companies able to remain true to their founding precepts. We are psyched to have Horsefeathers with us on this wild ride and look forward to sharing another 25 years of partying with them. Cheers to 25 years, Horsefeathers! Keep that equine plumage fresh!
Words: Hanus Salz – co-founder
Horsefeathers started by coincidence in British Columbia, Canada in 1989. When Stewart Carlson came up with the name Horsefeathers, we all thought it was hilarious. It is an antiquated British term for “nonsense”, an expression unused in Canada. Joel DeVille produced the first linoleum print at school, which we then pressed on anything we could get our hands on. This was how the first Horsefeathers stuff, mainly T-shirts and sweatshirts, came to life. We went to school in a small town called Midway and the three hundred school kids who attended came from small villages and surrounding farms. “Sport” was represented in purely classic disciplines. Skateboarding and snowboarding were definitely not on the list, nor were punk rock and baggy clothing (the skate/snow style of the ‘90s).
When Stew bought his size 40+ Levi’s jeans, put a belt in them and rolled up the pant legs, most people just freaked out! There were about six or seven of us snowboarding and we spent every single weekend in the mountains. There are a lot of great places to choose from in the surrounding area: Mt. Baldy, Phoenix, Whitewater, Red Mountain, Big White and many more. Snowboarding was just on its way to becoming popular at that point. You wouldn’t see too many snowboarders, but whenever we met other riders, we immediately got together. We compared our gear, showed each other secret spots full of powder and tried new tricks. We loved it. There were times when it did cross our minds that it would be cool to have real Horsefeathers gear, but it never really moved forward. In the end, it was all about sketching designs “for later”. After graduating in 1992, I took off to Czech Republic and Joel moved to Vancouver. The rest of the crew still had a couple of years of school to go. That was more or less the end of the Canadian chapter of the Horsefeathers story.
Once in Pilsen (the famous beer city in Czech Republic), I signed up to attend a local high school in order to fine tune my Czech. The situation was quite similar to my previous school in terms of skateboarding and snowboarding. Out of the 700 students, only one looked became my partner in the soon-to-be company. We hooked up right away. I told him about Canada and the whole Horsefeathers idea, and how it would be cool project to reincarnate. This time the idea grew into action and by the summer of 1993 a first collection was launched consisting of 50 T-shirts and 200 stickers. Most were given away, or sold cheap to friends. But we loved it and wanted to continue. Pavel was serving his civil service term and I was moving between Czech and Canada all the time. Even so, we managed to create new styles and products: more T-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, caps and jackets. There was no plan and when we sold something we made more of it, or replaced it with something newer or different. It may seem unbelievable, but sourcing fabrics and factories was an adventure of its own. There were no cell phones, no Internet, no place to get all needed information at once. I would spend days at a public pay phone, calling around, talking to factories. The phone connections were horrible and sometimes I couldn’t even get through. And when we did set up contact, it was not guaranteed we could work together. Some factories required such huge quantities that they were impossible to even consider and sewing workshops had no idea how to make the stuff we had designed. It was completely out of the “regular” clothing concept and they thought we were crazy. In the end we found suppliers we could work with and we started establishing lasting relationships with them. This gave us the opportunity to start improving quality, styling and patterns, and to develop new products.
In 1995 we opened the first real skate and snowboard shop in Pilsen, also named Horsefeathers - "Horsefeathers Sk8 & Snowboard Shop” - to be exact. It was a punk, but cool store. At that time, we only had our streetwear collection, but outerwear was definitely on our radar. We were sourcing fabrics and components, looking for companies with technical outerwear manufacturing experience and generally making sure that once we made the first snowboard clothing, it would be good right from the start. Many of the manufacturers could not guarantee they would be able to produce all the technical features, or maintain the quality that snowboard clothing requires. Nevertheless, after a few years of preparations, we were ready, and in 1997 we launched our first outerwear collection featuring five jackets and two pairs of pants. The accompanying catalog was hand drawn by our friend. It was a success and we sold most of the stuff before Christmas. In December, Pavel and I jumped on a plane and took off to Canada for two months to ride powder and, of course, test the new collection. It was an awesome trip. We had a huge GMC van, and along with two other friends, drove around different ski areas, picking up snow-bum hitchhikers along the way. We rode almost every day: what you might call “heaven on earth”. The parties after riding seemed to happen almost naturally and looking back, I have to say it was the best trip of our lives.
After returning from Canada, we exploded with activity, turning new ideas into reality. In the following years, Horsefeathers experienced crazy growth, and free time became scarce as incredible new projects emerged almost continuously. We did plan to disappear into the mountains for two months again, but the lifestyle directly linked with the brand sucked us in. Instead, we traveled around Europe. We went to contests, photo shoots, parties, events, concerts, trade shows, made new friends and merged with the scene. This lifestyle connected us with the people and the community who gave us the chance to have a job that was actually our hobby.
It has been 25 years since the first ideas and designs were drafted. What matters the most is what connects those early days with today. The world, now and then, is incomparable. Horsefeathers in British Columbia in 1989 was a rebellious project uniting a few friends through passion for skateboarding and snowboarding. Horsefeathers today is a brand with a whole team of people contributing to create collections of streetwear and outerwear sold throughout most European countries.
What has remained the same, though, is the creative freedom between a collective of like-minded individuals who decide and define what Horsefeathers is and will be. There are no corporate directives of some investment group. We alone decide what and how things should be done. And even though we are not immune to bad seasons or global financial turmoil, our desire to live an active lifestyle connected to the sports that started all of this, still burns strong. This vision connects Horsefeathers and everyone around it. That has not changed.
www.horsefeathers.eu