It’s no secret that locals from Park City to Salt Lake City understand how spending time outdoors provides a healthy dose of clarity and inspiration. A sweep of local apparel companies is also harnessing their connection to nature for positive impact. Through philanthropy, small-batch manufacturing and conscious design, these active lifestyle brands are setting both local and national benchmarks.
Built for Giving Back
Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Cotopaxi was founded by Davis Smith in 2014. Smith’s family moved to Latin America when he was 4 years old, and their memories are full of outdoor adventure. As an accomplished e-commerce entrepreneur, Smith had experience with a variety of businesses before deciding to launch an outdoor brand that would inspire people to do good and be involved in the natural world.
Selected for the Fortune 2023 Change the World list, the company directs a portion of revenue to social impact for impoverished communities. This is achieved through the brand’s Cotopaxi Foundation, a nonprofit arm that designates funds to nonprofits specializing in healthcare, education, livelihood and more.
“Our impact is focused on human sustainability. We dedicate 1% of revenue to the Cotopaxi Foundation and its mission of supporting people impacted by poverty. We do that primarily in Latin America, where our brand roots lie, and in the U.S.,” says Cotopaxi CEO Damien Huang.
“We focus on creating lasting impact with our nonprofit partners, through programs like education for girls in Colombia, prosthetic care for underserved communities in the Amazon, and support for LGBTQ+ homeless youth in the U.S. Human sustainability also means putting people first in every way, from supporting our employees with living wages to ensuring the workers within our supply chain can thrive,” he says.
The brand organizes Questivals, adventure day races for groups that include a service component. Offering support to refugees in Utah, the company also teams up with the International Rescue Committee to provide job skills training and work opportunities. Furthermore, Cotopaxi sustainably manufactures designs by utilizing leftover factory textiles that would otherwise go to the landfill into a unique line of packs. From a design standpoint, the product developers are directly inspired by the natural world.
“The outdoors and travel are where our design team turns for inspiration, from product features oriented around the elements to colors inspired by trips to Quito, Ecuador or Austin, Texas. Many of our product designers are based in Utah — where our company headquarters is — or across the Mountain West, and all are passionate about getting outside for hiking, skiing, camping and road trips,” says Huang.
“As outdoor enthusiasts, they’re always trying to solve pain points they encounter in the outdoors when they’re building apparel. For example, easy bathroom access on an active bodysuit, stash pockets for the removable legs on our zip-off pants, or a hand strap for carrying a shell after packing it down,” he explains.
Overcoming Apparel Obstacles
With a passion to solve problems, Edara Apparel founder Laura Nunnelly launched her apparel company to help tennis and pickleball players feel more comfortable and sophisticated at the same time. Debuted in 2020, the Park City-based line specializes in attractive, functional tennis dresses that are small-batch manufactured in the U.S. Plans include expanding into two-piece sets and golf apparel this year.
“When you look good in what you wear and if it’s functional and not distracting, you are setting yourself up for success. If something was riding up, I would need to tuck it back in. Or if it was too short, I’d be distracted. I was a recreational player, and I wanted to set myself up for decent playing,” says Nunnelly, who combined her daughters’ names, Edie and Clara, to create the brand’s name.
Typically, the tennis dresses that Nunnelly could find on the market were rather shapeless, in her opinion, and required separate shorts. As a result, the interior and exterior layers were not complimentary as the bottoms were visible and the seams created an outline. She set out to develop a dress with a defined waistband designed in conjunction with flattering undershorts.
“The shorts are connected into one piece in the dress; it’s one and done and looks like a skirt-and-shirt combo without fidgeting for it all to stay in place,” she notes. “I love when form and function are married in a fashionable way, and that epitomizes apparel with a need and purpose. Edara is meant to meet the needs of athletes while being elevated in style.”
In addition, Edara Apparel products are hyper-focused on staying safe in the sun as Nunnelly had melanoma removed from her midsection in 2017. She emphasizes, “I didn’t want to compromise sun safety on the court.”
Fashion and Function Unite
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, designer Marion Zaniello has always reveled in both skiing and fashion and wanted to find a way to “merge the two loves of her life,” she says. After working in the fashion industry creating women’s ready-to-wear for 25 years, from New York to Seattle, Zaniello shifted her path in 2021, three years after making Park City her home.
She introduced Team Event, a retro-inspired ski outerwear and après apparel brand. The pieces are inspired by the late seventies and early eighties. “That’s when our family moved to the Northwest and my parents made us all learn how to ski. I was envious of what everyone on the slopes was wearing,” she says.
Svelte, body-conscious skiwear with flare. The cool hot doggers. Classic red-and-navy colors. Ski suits. “I wanted to look fashionable. To wear something I could move and shred in. To stay warm and not feel confined or constrained by my outfit. That was difficult for me to find,” she says.
In reality, much of ski apparel was too baggy, which wasn’t conducive to her style. Nor could she find the most practical ski suits.
As founder and creative director of Team Event, Zaniello cherishes the creativity, engineering and teamwork involved in ground-up fashion design. During her foundational New York City years, Zaniello “worked directly with pattern makers and cutters — the whole team was right there,” she recalls. “Nothing was sent overseas. The factories were within a one-block radius of our studio. I loved that collaboration.”
Seeing passersby wearing her concepts was the icing on the cake. “There was something so fabulous about walking down the streets of New York and seeing someone wearing one of our creations. I’ve always been into clothing as a way of expressing personal creativity and personality. I also love the outdoors,” she adds.
A career transition into the outdoor industry has come with a wave of challenges and lessons. For instance, the outdoor apparel industry operates in a more “old-fashioned way” with the sales representatives playing a bigger role between the buyers and the vendors compared to the everyday fashion industry. Also, the tactile and local aspects of creating outdoor apparel is not as feasible. Most of the factories that house the machinery required to make outdoor wear are based overseas.
“I’ve been working on finding factories that have some of that modern machinery in North America, and it’s a lot more expensive, especially producing on a small scale. My ultimate retail ends up being vastly more expensive than competitors that are much more established. It’s a challenge,” she explains.
But Zaniello wouldn’t change her trajectory. Looking ahead, she’s working on more bread-and-butter apparel pieces in addition to annual ski suits, as well as combinations of muted tones with pops of bright color for visibility on the slopes.
Mountain-Inspired Design
Zenzee was founded in Park City by Sharon Backurz and has a boutique in Salt Lake City’s Maven District. After growing up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Backurz bounced around New York City, San Francisco and Seattle as a graphic designer. Started as a side hustle five years ago, Backurz first focused on footwear before branching into elevated knitwear and specializing in cashmere.
Interwoven with capsule drops, which are thematic and limited-edition collections, Zenzee hosts pop-up shops from Aspen to Brooklyn and Los Angeles. The company recently introduced cashmere polos, pleated skirts and bib vests; next is a balletcore line that includes arm warmers, leg warmers and tiny sweaters, an aesthetic inspired by ballerina style.
Zenzee creations are connected to “what you wear when you live in the mountains,” Backurz says. “I was designing for my body and age. I’ll be 60 this year and I have two young women that work with me, and I think the pieces span a nice age gap — comfortable, soft things that fit nicely on the body and have nothing that will cinch you.”
In addition to small-batch knits, Backurz creates one-of-a-kind and few-of-a-kind apparel with flair through details like sequins, fringe, feathers, tie-dye, ruffles and patches. They use deadstock (rolls of unused textiles) to upcycle new pieces, make bucket hats and scrunchies from recycled fabric, and deconstruct and recreate Champion sweatshirts. She says, “We try to be creative, to add to something to give it a special life.”
