Canada Goose Snow Mantra boot for women
Canada Goose takes the next step literally as a performance luxury brand able to withstand the worst that winter can throw at it. It is launching a line of high-tech footwear as part of its “Beyond the Parka” growth strategy.
Coming soon is the high-top Snow Mantra boot ($1,295) and the versatile Journey hiker boot ($750) for men and women. They will be available from the company’s own website, in its some 30 branded stores and through established wholesale partners including Net-A-Porter.
Both are completely waterproof and are packed with all kinds of high-tech performance attributes we’ve come to expect in athletic shoes. But when the weather turns cold and wet, a pair of sneakers just won’t cut it. Now consumers can don a matching pair of Canada Goose boots along with their Canada Goose parka to be ready for whatever the weather has in store.
Canada Goose Journey Boot for men
Canada Goose first dipped its toe into footwear with the acquisition of the Canadian footwear and outerwear company Baffin in 2018. While the two brands share a common heritage and cold-weather performance focus, Baffin has continued to operate as a standalone company. However, Canada Goose CEO Dani Reiss admits he learned a lot about the ins-and-outs of performance footwear from Baffin.
MORE FOR YOU
Rather than just slap a Canada Goose logo on a pair of Baffin boots, Reiss and his team approached developing a line of footwear following a proven, brand-centric process.
“Part of the success of the Canada Goose brand is keeping it pure from the start,” Reiss explains. “We started with the best outerwear and warmest jackets in the world and expanded out from there into other categories, like light-weight down jackets, knitwear and other apparel. With footwear, we are following the same playbook of starting small, taking our time to design the absolutely best product and launching the product in a thoughtful way.”
The company started to go “Beyond the Parka” some four years ago with the launch of knitwear in 2017, followed by fleece last year. And today he reports apparel alone is expected to exceed $45 million in sales this fiscal year.
The success of venturing “Beyond the Parka” is credited to its carefully choreographed, step-by-step expansion into adjacent categories appropriate for the brand. With the launch of footwear, Canada Goose can lay claim to full lifestyle brand status as it gives its customers the ability to dress head-to-toe in the brand.
20-year journey to a lifestyle brand
When Reiss joined Canada Goose in 1997, it was a utilitarian brand serving the needs of people who faced the coldest weather on earth, not just mountain climbers and arctic explorers, but working-class folks who needed ultimate protection from the elements.
Canada Goose was founded as a Canadian sportswear company in 1957 and innovated into down coats in the 1970s with the invention of a down-filling machine.
It gain international fame in the 1980s with its Expedition Parka designed to protect scientists at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station and it custom designed a parka for Canada’s Laurie Skreslet for her historic Mount Everest summit in 1982.
Dani Reiss, the grandson of company founder Sam Tick and son of David Reiss, who invented the down-filling machine, joined the company in 1997 and was named president and CEO in 2001.
“When I joined the company, we had about 20 styles of jackets, some $3 million in sales and no stores,” he relates. Under his leadership, Canada Goose expanded into lighter-weight parkas in 2011 to extend its selling season from the deep-cold of winter in the coldest climates to three-season wear everywhere. Today over 20% of revenues come from its lightweight down range.
“At the start, we were what could be called an ‘industrial’ brand, made to serve people who live and work in the coldest places on earth,” Reiss explains. “We’ve been able to take our performance and functional promise and move into the mainstream to become a true luxury brand. I refer to us as the ‘Land Rover’ of clothing. Our stuff really works and that differentiates us from any other brands.”
After training for years in its core competency as the ultimate performance brand, Canada Goose reached the summit of luxury brand status in 2017 when it went public, after opening two flagship stores in Toronto and New York the year before.
Since then, it has followed its slow and steady expansion model it uses for product into retail. “We’re very selective about where we locate stores,” he shares.
“Unlike a lot of other luxury brands, we are not looking to have a lot of stores. We want to be in only the best locations in the biggest cities,” he continues, noting that China has been growing in importance. Over half of its 30 stores (18) are located in China, “small relative to a lot of other luxury brands,” he says.
‘Tis the season
The new line of Canada Goose boots will drop in November, just as its prime selling season ramps up. It is coming off its biggest fiscal third and fourth quarter ever, October 2020 through March 2021.
In fourth quarter alone, sales increased by 33.7% compared with pre-pandemic 2019 and 48% over previous year. And e-commerce grew 123.2% year-over-year. Its growth pace in China is even more impressive with revenues doubling over last year.
Canada Goose closed fiscal 2021 with C$904 million, down modestly from fiscal 2020 when it reached C$958 million in sales. It expects fiscal 2022 revenues to exceed C$1 billion.
During fiscal 2022, Reiss announced ten new store openings, including one in South Coast Plaza in Southern California, two new locations in Germany, another in the U.K. and six permanent stores in Asia Pacific.
“All of our markets have performed really well, as has our online e-commerce,” he concludes. “It demonstrates the power of our lifestyle brand around the world and how much our message resonates with consumers. We foresee a bright future.”
