Brands warm to new products as climate change lessens demand for cold weather gear

Entrepreneur Bertrand Cesvet is a member of an investment group that bought Kanuk, a luxury parka brand based in Quebec, in May. Cesvet is seen in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Bertrand Cesvet

Bertrand Cesvet is feeling the heat — and not because of a late-summer hot spell.

The entrepreneur is part of an investment group that bought luxury parka maker Kanuk in May, and while he's proud to have his hand in the company he calls the Canada Goose of Quebec, he admits that climate change weighs heavily on its future.

"The reality is that cold is not happening anymore," Cesvet said.

"The group that had Kanuk had bought it eight years before and that was the last time it was -35 C in Quebec. Since then, basically the weather's been getting warmer and warmer."

The rising temperatures pose a threat to Kanuk's flagship product — parkas that can withstand -25 C — and have Cesvet and other retail leaders thinking about how to weatherproof their businesses for a future where extreme heat, flooding and natural disasters could be the norm.

The trio of troubles are expected to dramatically transform how consumers shop in the decades to come, but Mother Nature can be unpredictable, making it hard for retailers to prepare their inventory for weather patterns months and even years in advance.

"The problem is that word, 'volatility.' This isn't a consistent linear change that you can track and plan for," said Lorna Hall, director of fashion intelligence at trend forecasting firm WGSN.

"You're going to have a year with a (milder) winter and the next year you're going to see a snow dump. It may be a really big dump, and it may be slightly out of sync with where you'd have expected to see it

For example, many people were caught off guard when last year saw a later start to winter, with milder-than-average conditions in several corners of the country. The situation put a dent in Canadian Tire Corp.'s outerwear, ski and snowboard sales and had many consumers putting off purchases of Canada Goose's hefty down coats.

Yet Dani Reiss, Canada Goose's chief executive, refuses to see the company his grandfather Sam Tick founded in 1957 as doomed by weather, preferring instead to characterize climate swings as "a challenge and opportunity."

"The way to look at it and the way we certainly look at it is that we're going to make the right sort of apparel that the world and the consumers are looking for as we see these things shift," he said.

Canada Goose is synonymous with apparel that combats the coldest of colds and even has chilled rooms in many of its stores where customers can test the gear, but in recent years the company warmed to a broader product base.

Now it sells footwear, including sneakers and rain boots, along with pieces designed for windy or wet weather. (Reiss imagines one day expanding into luggage and eyewear, too.)

Peak Performance is similarly preparing itself for more extreme weather patterns, including intense storms and prolonged heat waves.

Marcus Grönberg, general manager for North America at the Swedish activewear purveyor, said the company's leadership team is briefed annually by environmental experts who share long-term weather outlooks spanning the next 20 or 30 years.

Their insights help the brand, which has been selling in Canada for a decade, select materials and choose styles for forthcoming product lines, Grönberg said in an email. For example, the insights helped the company develop a fabric engineered to be waterproof, windproof and breathable.

WGSN's Hall has seen other companies experiment with fabrics that offer protection against ultraviolet rays or turn a different colour when a wearer is at risk of extreme heat. She's even spotted brands selling clothing embedded with fans, making them optimal for people spending prolonged periods in the sun.

At Nobis, a Markham, Ont.-based brand where parkas are the star, much attention is being paid these days to lightweight knits, moisture-wicking apparel and layered pieces that can easily transform for any temperature or weather condition.

"What we've seen is, I think, more than ever a demand for obviously adaptable pieces," said Robin Yates, co-founder of Nobis and a former vice-president of Canada Goose. "The consumers want it all now."

While some may balk at paying north of $1,000 for a Nobis parka, especially as the winter season shortens, those price tags become a lot more palatable when they're attached to versatile products that can be worn from late August into April, he said.

"Parkas aren't going away, but they aren't giving you that lengthy season that makes sense for the investment," he said.

Kanuk's Cesvet has a more pessimistic take. Ask him about heavyweight down jackets and he says, "that's a market to me that is gone at this point."

He feels so strongly about the prediction that he's ruled out dabbling in any extreme cold weather gear for his other company, Psycho Bunny. The menswear and kidswear retailer will instead maintain its focus on polos and graphic tees along with long-sleeved shirts, a new category for the brand.

But at Kanuk, where hefty coats have been the business's stalwart for decades, the future of cold weather apparel presents a much more existential conundrum that can't be avoided.

The brand will look to products like lightweight jackets to buoy the business and take an evolved approach to the fashion industry's traditional cycles.

"It looks now like we have two seasons or three seasons but certainty not four and we are going to have to change the way we speak to consumers, but we're only at the beginning for that," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2024.