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66North’s outerwear can be seen on fishermen and members of the Icelandic Search and Rescue team, and CEO Helgi Óskarsson says 98 per cent of households in Iceland own a piece from the brand, which they wear to ward off extreme cold in the winter. Now, the brand’s long-standing commitment to performance has taken it to an unexpected setting: fashion week.
On Tuesday at Copenhagen Fashion Week, the Icelandic brand is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an immersive presentation that aims to showcase its technical DNA, while cementing its new-found fashion credentials. The 66North team (who have flown in from Iceland) will repair garments live, putting them through a wind and weather simulator to test performance. The presentation will include deconstructed 66North garments to showcase how they’re made. It follows from last season, when the brand took over a warehouse space with a presentation of its archival pieces.
“We wanted to do a celebration that would give people behind-the-scenes insight into the brand,” says Óskarsson, who took over the label in 2011 with his wife Bjarney Harðardóttir, who is chief brand officer. “Sometimes, things are so close to you that you forget to recognise them,” Óskarsson says, referring to the brand’s long-standing repairs initiative. “We want to showcase something that maybe not everyone is aware of but is really valuable.”
“It’s important for us to showcase the authenticity of the brand, which is based on quality and craftsmanship,” adds Harðardóttir. “Even though we’re a small brand from Iceland, we have a big vision to become the sustainable outdoor brand of the world and we want to showcase our old-school business model — that it’s possible to make things that last and can be repaired.”
66North has been pushing deeper into the fashion world in recent years, which has helped boost brand awareness. It launched a collaboration with Scandi star Ganni in 2018, now in its fourth edition; plus, a collaboration with London-based emerging designer Charlie Constantinou, creating two collections between 2023 and 2024. When Óskarsson and Harðardóttir took over, they decided to invest in the Icelandic market by bulking out its design team to meet local performance needs and opening a flagship in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík.
Scandinavia was a natural next step: 66North’s first international store in Copenhagen opened in 2014. In 2022, the brand opened a flagship on London’s Regent Street and a store in Copenhagen Airport in 2024. By aligning with the creative world, the brand has reached a more fashion-forward gorpcore-loving audience while staying true to its Icelandic heritage. The timing was right: technical outwear has surged post-pandemic, as former streetwear aficionados shift their attention to high-performance clothes.
The owners see aligning with the fashion world as a key element of future-proofing 66North for the next century. “When we took over the company, our aim was always to take the brand global, offering better products and design but staying true to our DNA, which is durability and sustainability,” says Óskarsson. “For it to last the next 100 years, we found it was important to open it up to the world and make the heritage relevant for a bigger audience,” adds Harðardóttir. The brand did not share its financial performance.
Even as the brand expands into new categories and markets, there are certain lines Óskarsson says he’d never cross. “We won’t compromise on functionality. Every time we do a collaboration or design a new style, we think about how that will make the customer’s life better and easier,” he says. “Even if it’s a light T-shirt that you can use for hiking or running, it has UV protection; our windbreakers are waterproof.” All of the brand’s collaborations are produced by 66North rather than a third party, which allows more control over quality and fabrication.
The biggest challenge for the brand is to maintain its technical DNA and sustainability commitments while pursuing growth. Sustainability has fallen out of fashion lately, with political backlash against ESG (environmental, social and governance) in the US and regulations in the EU being watered down as part of the Omnibus Simplification Package. 66North claims anti-ESG moves have not affected its approach.
The brand acknowledges that its environmental footprint has expanded (though it did not share further details), but highlights that it has extended its repair services beyond Iceland, phased out fabrics that feature PFAs (also known as “forever chemicals”) and ensured collaborations are created in limited runs to avoid overproduction. “We firmly believe that responsible growth and profitable operations aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s only when a company earns enough to reinvest in people, innovation and practices that it can truly sustain its environmental agenda,” Óskarsson says.
Harðardóttir defines sustainability as a commitment to take responsibility for every part of the chain, not just end sales. Because 66North produces the majority of its styles in its own facilities across Europe, and where lead times for production are slower, scaling the business has been challenging, Harðardóttir says. “In the end, you want to scale in a way that’s responsible so you’re not overproducting or overflowing the market, so you need to take responsible small steps. For the past 14 years, we’ve been doing that very slowly and steadily, even though it would be easier to sell everywhere and produce huge quantities.”
As they grapple with growth versus sustainability, or fashion versus function, 66North’s owners are intentional about building the brand’s legacy for the next 100 years. “100 years from now, I want the next generation to look back and think, ‘They truly did their best to stay true to what this brand is about,’” says Óskarsson. “We get a lot of questions about whether we’re moving into fashion, but even if someone is climbing a mountain everyone wants to look good. So our challenge is to make it relevant, functional and keep true to quality, durability and sustainability.”
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