Sneaky Peek – 2011 Outerwear

Published on: 23rd February, 2010

There was a MASSIVE selection of outerwear around at this years Slide, one brand even picked up a trophy for having the best coat!

Grenade were the first company we went to visit and they had some very un-grenade garments going on! Obviously there was a sick selection of standard army motive jackets, but for next winter Grenade have really pushed the boat out. They’ve got a couple of print style jackets with amazing quality and little details that’ll get you stoked, but also they have some really bright colourful number too. Perhaps grenade are expanding their niche?

Next we headed over to Airblaster and almost had our minds blown! Airblaster make two types of jacket; incredibly stylish and incredibly strange, either way you’ll stand out from the crowd!

Airblaster have a whole host of outerwear combo’s going on and one crazy number that zips the jacket and pants together, but looks like a Hawaii 5-0 nightmare. Airblaster have expanded their ninja suits and sumo suits base-layers, with baby style onesies and velour numbers too. We’ll put Airblaster down to a personal view, but we were more than stoked on the majority of their stuff.

Oxbow are providing some pretty rad stuff, while the brand probably still appeals to cross-over surfers and trendy Dad’s, they do have some sneaky bits of magic that might tempt one or two park rats and potentially turn a few heads.

Westbeach’s new range is going to provide something old and something new for 2010/11. Their classic and massively popular stripy jacket has once more undergone an evolution with more tech fabrics and even brighter colour choices. The ladies too have a massive choice as Westbeach has give chicks; mega-bright, bold and understated colour-ways, Westbeach is pretty eager to keep all the ladies happy!

Despite all this what we were most impressed with was what Westbeach had hidden away… Westbeach have made some stuff for the Hesh kids too, they have faux-jeans (which look sick) and a range of arty ‘gone fishing’ graphics, you’ll have to check it out.

New kids on the block Bond only went and won a trophy for having the best jacket at slide, which is a massive stoke of confidence for any new brand. We thought Bond’s jackets definitely deserved credit as the quality is unreal, Bond have certainly put a lot of thought into the cut and style of their stuff, they’ll be big… you’ll see!

Planet Earth outerwear are once again being distributed on our shores, and once more they have come out with a classic Planet Earth collection of vintage snowboard clothes with earthy colours and baggy cuts.

The most exciting collaboration we saw was at the Sessions stand. Sessions have made a jacket with Skully Candy and Pearl Jam, double whammy! The Jacket features artwork for Pearl Jam’s last album Backspacer, it also has an ipod/mp3 connection, a remote control on the arm… and it has speakers built into it too! SPEAKERS! Sessions also have collaborations with Dragon and a whole bunch of other exciting stuff too.

Our last port of call was Ride clothing, who possibly had the biggest range of anyone at Slide. The collection was typical of what we have come to expect of Ride clothing, the majority of styles are slim fit trousers and a fitted look to their jackets. For 2010/11 Ride have collaborated with U.S brand Spacecraft and subsequently they’ve turned out a rad jacket, slim fit and minimal, but there’s plenty of hidden graphic bits in the pockets and liners for fans to geek out on!

Finally some late news, we’ve just heard that Krew Denim are being imported for next winter too. Krew are a skate brand that are making some waterproof jeans for next winter, catering to the skinny jean hipsters out there. Krew’s stuff isn’t like conventional denim outerwear, these garments are designed as jeans you can snowboard in, not snowboard pants that look like jeans. You’ll have to see ‘em to believe ‘em.