4 Next Gear Brands from the Alps

So, What's Next?

Thanks to the gorpcore trend that swept the streets, Arc'teryx and Salomon have gone beyond being the hipster uniform to become everyday wear, 365 days a year.

But when everyone starts wearing the same outerwear and trail running shoes, the front line of trends always goes looking for "what's next."

There are names that are already legends among serious mountaineers and alpinists, yet have only just appeared on the fashion scene as intriguing outsiders. Four brands born in Italy's Dolomites, the Alps, and the rugged mountain ranges of the Czech Republic.

We introduce the real-deal European outdoor gear brands that perfected the aesthetics of "performance fabric" and "ultralight" more than a decade ago, long before luxury houses started talking about them.

Montura

The Italian alpine tech chosen by Herno

The most interesting angle when talking about the outdoor brand Montura is the "nature of the capital" behind it. In 2021, Claudio Marenzi, CEO of Italian luxury outerwear brand Herno, teamed up with the Agnelli family's capital (Exor), the holding company behind Ferrari, to bet €100M on Montura.

Why It's Cool
Marenzi is the man who successfully repositioned Herno as high-end luxury. He has declared that he will elevate Montura's "extreme technical prowess" into an "urban aesthetic." It means Montura's "Vertigo pants," which changed the rules of the category by ergonomically combining five materials, will soon be walking the streets as one of the most refined luxury workleisure pieces.

Karpos

The ruler of the Dolomites, set to be proven by the 2026 Olympics

Karpos, which uses a lizard footprint as its logo, was born in 2007 at the foot of Italy's Dolomites. True to its motto, "free to climb any surface," it is the product of harsh conditions, built through feedback from elite athletes and mountain guides tumbling through the snow.

Why It's Cool
At the "2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics" taking place this very year, ski mountaineering (ski-alpinism) is contested as an official event. Karpos is the official supplier to Italy's national team in this very sport. A brand that will finish its visual proof on the Olympic stage as the national team's uniform before it's ever consumed as fashion. The precise body-mapped silhouettes of its in-house windproof fabric (K-Shell) show how function becomes design.

Crazy

The "fashionization of performance," sparked by a female skier

"Why is everything you wear in the mountains just dull, boring, bulky black jackets?" In 1989, Italian skier Valeria Colturi started from this frustration and founded a brand herself. From the very beginning, the brand's DNA was a provocative declaration: "Make the most innovative mountain clothing, but it absolutely has to look good."

Why It's Cool
It's the perfect prototype of the "Sportsmart" trend, where sportswear technology meets fashion aesthetics. It carries the authentic narrative common to beauty and activewear brands for women: "I made it because I wanted to wear it." In a heavy outdoor scene, its signature "crazy" vibe, using Lycra to deliver stretch, lightness, and color all at once, is the freshest alternative right now.

Direct Alpine

95% Made in EU, the cool of wearing and repairing

A small, elite brand founded by climbers in Liberec, Czech Republic, in 2005. Instead of logo play or flashy marketing, the most powerful weapon it puts forward is being "circular." More than 95% of all its products are meticulously made within Europe, in places like the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Why It's Cool
"A 3-year warranty, and after that, we'll keep repairing it with original materials for good." This almost stubbornly honest principle is the most high-end mindset there is in 2026. Not consuming and throwing clothes away, but wearing in clothes that European craftspeople built with a top-grade membrane (Gelanots), repairing them along the way. It's gorpcore in its most intelligent form, Patagonia's "Worn Wear" philosophy with added European precision.

💡EDITORIAL SMALL TALK

The Era When Weight (Grams) Became Luxury
Louis Vuitton (LV) recently released a 300-gram ultralight jacket and named it, quite literally, "Drop 300." In the high-end scene, "lightness" has now become the most expensive premium spec in itself. But the fun fact is that the European alpine brands we just introduced are the "originals of lightweighting," having obsessively researched "how to shave off even 10 more grams" for over a decade. They are the origin of the performance story that luxury houses are only now starting to tell, and that's exactly why these rugged brands look the most refined right now.