Brand Heat: Why Winter Brands Are Going All In on Summer

For decades, Canada Goose ducked out of designing summer clothing. The Toronto-born brand became recognized around the globe for its luxury performance apparel, engineered to endure the bitter cold — woolen vests, hardy raincoats, snowmobile suits — and worn by Antarctic scientists and South Pole adventurers. Recently, though, it’s been sending a message to broaden its seasonal scope with the tagline of its latest campaign: “We do summer, too.”

This reminder to consumers is echoing around the outerwear market right now. “Have a Puffy Summer,” declared Moncler’s first-ever dedicated warm-weather campaign, featuring actor Jamie Dornan sporting one of its new, lighter down jackets. Arc’teryx, meanwhile, released the Demlo, a nylon mini-ripstop button-up that Highsnobiety called “the world’s most advanced summer shirt”, thanks to its ultra-thin design and heavy-duty weatherproofing.

“We’re increasingly seeing outerwear-centric brands trying to stay relevant during the warmer months,” says Henry Robinson, Proper Mag editor. “I think we’re seeing a new culture develop around lightweight jackets, particularly from technical brands that traditionally would have waited until winter to produce outerwear.”

This pivot to summerwear has been in the making for a while. “While many consumers know us for iconic winter products like down jackets, we’ve been building products for warmer seasons just as long,” says Alicia Thin, director, category merchandising EMEA of The North Face. Canada Goose, meanwhile, launched their first spring collection in 2015, featuring a new “Soft Shell” category comprising breathable performance jackets for balmier weather.

Canada Goose’s “We do summer, too” (left) and Moncler’s “Have a Puffy Summer” (right) campaign.

But this trend seems to have been galvanized by both the industry climate and the actual climate. On the former, luxury has been weathering a grueling slowdown, creating a new impetus to go evergreen. Moncler’s earnings call, meanwhile, signposted a shift towards a “buy now, wear now” attitude, meaning that summer slumps could not be tided over by consumers buying winter jackets ahead of time. For a long time, the puffer has often been a year-round product: “We’ve always sold parkas throughout the year, even when our assortment was much more focused on winter outerwear,” says Carrie Baker, brand and commercial president at Canada Goose.

But in the Western Hemisphere, the new normal of searing heat is making voluminous coats increasingly unviable year-round. “Winters are becoming less cold in our markets, while summers are becoming more extreme,” says Peter Landa, co-owner of Amsterdam-based outerwear brand Welter Shelter. Newer demographics in hotter countries, meanwhile, make toasty clothing less attractive; the average daytime temperature in winter in the UAE, a new luxury powerhouse, is 25°C. “Serving those customers [in hotter countries] has meant creating products that make sense for where and how they live,” says Landa.

“We have The North Face stores all across Europe, The Middle East and Africa from Glasgow and Stockholm to Dubai and Cape Town so our products need to work across a multitude of climates and service vastly different consumer trends,” says Thin.

Peter Landa (left) and Sjoerd Cuypers (right), co-owners of Welter Shelter.

At its most basic level, this new year-round approach stops outerwear brands from becoming obsolete for part of the year. “The bigger opportunity is what we think of as expanding the calendar. For a long time, there was a very clear trigger for many consumers to think about Canada Goose: when the temperature dropped,” says Baker. “Today, we’re creating more reasons for customers to engage with us across seasons, climates and occasions.”

This diversification into perennial apparel has huge financial potential. “In Q1 FY27, non-outerwear categories represented nearly 40% of our revenue, compared with approximately 5% five years ago,” says Baker. Moncler’s most recent earnings call revealed a strong response to its first “end-to-end” summer collection. “This represents the kickoff of a long-term commitment that we have as a brand,” said chief brand officer Gino Fisanotti on the call, noting that he wanted the luxury alpine label to become relevant “across the​​ entire year”.

But performance outerwear brands have to prevent this new focus on summer from diluting their winter offerings. Spending on warmer-weather campaigns means borrowing, very literally, from cash put aside for rainy days. So how can brands enter the summer arena without losing their winter dominance?

When thinking about summer, the first place to start is winter. Outerwear brands have mastered a technical approach to clothing that is, in many ways, transferable to different temperatures.

“Whether someone is climbing an ice wall in winter or training indoors during summer, the performance needs remain similar: freedom of movement, protection, breathability, and durability,” says Thin. “We have nearly 70 years of product history to draw from, and we’re constantly finding new ways to reinterpret that heritage through different materials, weights and silhouettes,” says Baker. “They can do this by implementing the kind of technical detailing we’d previously have seen on heavier jackets across other products — whether that’s shorts, shirts, skirts or even headwear,” says Robinson. “People crave technical details year-round, but unfortunately there are fewer and fewer days in the calendar year now when a down jacket or hardshell is actually suitable.”

But that doesn’t mean that it’s a drag-and-drop job. “For us, it’s not about simply taking a winter product and making a lighter version of it,” says Baker. “It’s about going back to the function, construction, and design thinking that made those pieces distinctive in the first place and asking how that can solve a different need today.” The new summer Mirage Jacket, for example — an uninsulated outer layer — takes inspiration from the 1990s Constable Jacket — a heavier-duty winter coat. The North Face’s signature Futurelight membranes, a novel waterproof technology, protect the wearer from wind and rain while allowing heat to escape when running or hiking. Similarly, its Lightrange finish boasts UPF properties, meaning it can protect your skin from the sun.

Hitting the entire fashion calendar with clothing also means filling it with events. Activations give winter-coded brands a chance to show they mean business when it comes to summer, too. Last June, Canada Goose swapped snowstorms for an acrid Utah desert, with its creative director Haider Ackermann in tow. “Its success seems sure-footed, no matter the terrain,” Vogue’s Olivia Allen said of the trip. “It was an important moment for us because it brought together performance, nature and Haider’s distinct point of view on style and luxury in a way that felt very Canada Goose, but in an entirely different season and environment,” says Baker.

Welter Shelter, meanwhile, visited Paris when it was burning. “At the end of May this year, we did a summer gifting initiative focused on Paris, as a way of giving the collection a second push during a period when the city was experiencing multiple heatwaves,” says Sjoerd Cuypers, co-owner of Welter Shelter. “Then, almost perfectly, the week our community received their jackets, the weather completely turned, and Paris was hit by torrential rain.”

Welter Shelter visited Paris during the heatwave and did a summer gifting initiative as a way of giving their collection a second push.

Canada Goose’s recent series of “Local Expeditions” has headed to hotter climes, including experiencing the summer solstice in Italy, the return of the Coho salmon in Haida Gwaii and watching the eclipse in Iceland. The North Face, this year, continued its Climb Festival, a peak-summer festival at Royal Victoria Dock in London. And, just this week, Moncler Grenoble teamed up with Hotel Jerome to launch a new range of private guided treks in Aspen.

Sunshine is, for these outerwear brands, unlikely to ever eclipse snow as a meteorological muse. They will still want to be associated with the frostier months. “Canada Goose became the go-to brand in winter, but outerwear was just our first expression. We earned that credibility by making exceptional products that protect people in the coldest environments on earth,” says Baker. But expanding the boundaries of what an outerwear brand looks like and aligning with warmer weather is a worthwhile mission, reflecting rising turbulence across both weather and market. “We don’t necessarily think in terms of a strict summer or winter wardrobe, but we design for unpredictability,” says Cuypers.