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During the upcoming Copenhagen Fashion Week, the Icelandic outdoors brand 66°North will adjust its latitude to 55° 40’N, and present an open-to-the-public exhibition marking its 99th year. In addition to looking back, the brand will push forward, showing both its new line and a capsule with expatriate American outdoor photographer and cyclist Chris Burkard to be released in March.
Approaching a century in business is monumental, yet it’s a feat even more remarkable in the Nordic apparel market, where the brands that have become household names are of a more recent vintage. Why mark 99 rather than the more traditional 100? The initiative came from the design department, explained Bjarney Harðardóttir, company co-owner and CBO of the company with co-owener and CEO Helgi Óskarsson. 99 is 66 rotated 180°, creating a visual harmony.
Continuity and heritage are two values that will be stressed at the upcoming installation. 66°North was founded in 1926 by a fisherman named Hans Kristjánsson who had studied clothing making before returning home to establish Sjóklæðagerð Íslands (the name was changed in 1977), Óskarsson explained on a call. Kristjánsson’s motivation, he continues, wasn’t money, but social responsibility. “In 1926, we didn’t have any weather forecasts, boats were open, and we lost a lot of people… I can promise you that [most Icelanders] either have a father, a grand- or great-grandfather who lost their life at sea…. . And so Hans’s mission was to save lives; and when you start making clothes that save lives, you can’t compromise on quality, durability.”
From the start, then, 66°North has been a purpose-led company connected to a place and people in all kinds of industries. After Kristjánsson moved operations to Reykjavík in 1931, he started getting requests from the likes of rescue teams, farmers, and the like, eventually becoming, noted Harðardóttir, “a uniform of Iceland…. Though only one style is now made on home turf, the CEO continued, “We have always operated our own production and the repair shop was founded at the same time as the company,” she continued. (In 1999 production was moved from Iceland, where labor costs are high to Latvia where garments are made in the brand’s self-owned factory.)
Durability and sustainability will be other tenets touted in the exhibition. 66°North is B Corp certified—the first Icelandic brand to receive the certification, says Óskarsson, who notes that the values of the company jigsaw nicely with CPHFW’s focus on responsibility. Unlike the other brands on the schedule 66°North is not a fashion brand first, though it has done collaborations with labels like Ganni and Charlie Constantinou as well as athletes and artists, like Burkard, a Californian who lives between the US and Iceland.
It’s been some time since technical outerwear has transitioned from lift lines, Everest, and frozen tundras to runways and cities. Luxury and designer brands are actively courting brands like The North Face, Fjällräven, Henro, Moncler, and Canada Goose to bring a kind of street cred—one associated with function, sports, and durability—to their wares. (There are even memes in which personified brands roast each other. ) 66°North, which exists a bit apart geographically, has been flirting with fashion; this installation during CPHFW suggests it might want to get serious. And as far as Óskarsson is concerned, anything is possible. “We are on an island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and still there is kind of a very interesting mentality. Once you stay here…you feel that you can kind of conquer the world even though you’re only 400,000 people. You have a football team that’s going to the World Cup and doesn’t accept losing against nations that have tens of millions of people…you still want to prove yourself in the world so you don’t see any kind of limitations even though you come from this small place in the middle of nowhere.” Well, not exactly nowhere—at the 66 parallel north.
