INTERVIEW: SNOW PEAK LONDON
Snow Peak have arrived in London, so may we offer a warm WELCOME !! These are exciting times, what do you hope to achieve regarding the true identity of the brand by being in the UK ?
Snow Peak’s mission is to connect people with nature and each other. Camping is about spending time with family in nature and about living in a primitive way. The Snow Peak way of camping allows you to do this in comfort. Through shared experiences, we’d like to help to make our users lives better and happier.
“In modern society, people are often stressed out and often subconsciously look to the healing properties of nature and being outdoors. As a result, mainstream fashion is starting to switch from luxury and aesthetic to a style more closely linked to nature and finding value in genuine health and happiness.”
The store is certainly not your average ‘outdoor brand store’ moreover its an encapsulation and representation of the lifestyle that Snowpeak brings to the world - what is the ultimate goal over the next 3 years for the brand in the UK territory ? Will you continue to switch up the space making it more modular and reactive to brand momentum ? Will it be an immersive experience for the customer ?
As well as being a retail store, we think it is extremely important to set up a Snow Peak campsite and regularly hold The Snow Peak Way - our signature Snow Peak camp event which is very popular in Japan and the US. It is important for the user and customers in the UK to be able to touch and experience our products in real outdoor environments. We'd like to create events for all of our staff and customers, camping together, enjoy and build up the Snow Peak community in the UK.
Many phrases like ’the time is now’ ‘seize the day’ and especially 'fortune favours the brave' come to mind when thinking about the arrival of Snow Peak in the UK right now, given the current market economic climate - what was it that made you decide to make this grand gesture of a move now ?
Snow Peak had an office in Germany around ten years ago, but due to logistical problems we decided to close this down. After this time we had problems with our manufacturing capacity and product supply chain, this took several years to resolve. After we launched the apparel line in 2014, we have gradually grown our business and started receiving great responses from UK and EU users.
As we see, customers are waiting to get our products, we are so glad that finally we can supply our products here in London with our store and E-Commerce platform. Also as a market, UK people will understand our high-quality products and it’s country where people enjoy nature and traditionally go camping.
Snow Peak is a brand that is well known for two relatively contrasting elements, the first being extreme technical innovation within the design and production yet the other is the warm and inclusive explorative community built around the brand based around the love of the outdoors - what was the true ethos at the inception of the brands mission ? Get people outdoors or push innovative boundaries in equipment and apparel ?
Around 1997 the Snow Peak business nearly folded. The camping boom in Japan has ended. Snow Peak as a business had to change or it would have ended. It was in 1998 that we held our first ever ‘Snow Peak Way’. We invited existing customers to join us on a camping trip and listened to their feedback. Sat round our fire pits, we had the first ever ‘takibi time’ (NB takibi means bonfire in Japanese) and listen to the customer comments and complaints about our products. In Japan we hold over 30 Snow Peak camp events per year.
We have always been innovative as a company with our research and our design facility in Tokyo is one of the most important area of the business. But for us it is important that every employee of Snow Peak attends a Snow Peak way and listens to the customers first hand. We want to get more people outdoors, but at the same time time we realise that peoples connection to nature is dependent upon their personal experiences and we need to listen to that as a company to continue to grow.
The mission of our brand is to think of itself as a user, provide goods and services that can impress each other, and propose and realize a nature-oriented lifestyle. We will provide products and services from the user's standpoint to the business for past, current and future business.
The community lifestyle pertained by Snow Peak in Japan is well documented as is the philanthropy of the brand in its consistent devotion to give people the opportunity to fall in love with the great outdoors and appreciate nature … is this a philosophy that by having a basecamp in London now you will seek to impart to the new customers in the UK ?
Definitely, I hope we can make proposals to enrich our lives by enjoying nature through our products. Especially in Europe, there are many people who know Snow Peak with apparel, so I'm glad to see more people start enjoying camping together and building a community with British camping fans.
There is no doubt that ’technical apparel’ is having a moment right now as people seek to invest in clothing that protects and lasts and that also has an element of tailoring to it, stores like Browns East, Mr Porter, END and Garbstore have wide and intelligent buys in place to merge the 'neu garde' of technical apparel with more high end cut and sew fashion house brands - Why do you think the more educated fashion consumer has switched buying habits to accommodate and allow brands such as your own and the likes of AndWander, Descente AllTerrain into their wardrobe choices ?
In modern society, people are often stressed out and often subconsciously look to the healing properties of nature and being outdoors. As a result, mainstream fashion is starting to switch from luxury and aesthetic to a style more closely linked to nature and finding value in genuine health and happiness.
I'm so pleased with this change, and I think buyers who understand our brand and brands you listed are the people truly understand the value of our life.
“I think we have a huge influence by Japanese traditional way of thinking which is related to the culture... such as life, food, Zen, Wabi-Sabi, architectural style.”
Japanese brands have arguably ‘changed the game’ with regards to quality, consistency and beauty within the design process and content output - what is it that separates the Japanese mindset / culture attached to modernism and progression that makes it so visible and desirable and in turn nothing like the western methods of ‘being a brand’ ?
To start with we create what we want to use, making something that doesn't break, then listen to customers feedback and continue to improve the product. In this sense, our camp event, Snow Peak Way is very important opportunities to hear the voice of the user directly. We have both positive feedback and negative feedback. It is important to have negative feedback and based on that we develop products for in the next season. Our brand is created by users and us together.
Following on from the above - with the arrival of more Japanese brands opening their stores in London like Nepenthes, 45R, Japan House, Would you say that their arrival and occupation of bricks and mortar ‘homes’ if you will, is educating the European and UK customer on Japanese thinking and overall culture via consumer experience ?
We weren’t particularly conscious of other brands arriving or opening stores. We decided to launch because over the last few years we have had many request from users in Europe and theScandinavian countries.
This fact tells us that Europeans understand our brand and qualities of products. This market is a match with our brand. In the future, we'd like to understand the culture of the local market in Europe and create a new camping culture together with European users like we are doing in Japan for 60 years.
Do you think it is the case that Japan and its culture / people are the worlds best at looking at the past present and future at the same time to distill a new sense of modernity and forge progressive creative paths? Would you say that it is ultimately the respect felt for your culture is what constantly enables Japanese brands to have perpetual momentum and success as opposed to stagnation and a regressive personality ?
Yes, I think we have huge influence by Japanese traditional way of thinking which is related with the culture such as life, food, Zen, Wabi-Sabi, architectural style. There are many Japanese brands that are influenced by Western brands, but Japanese designers can usually add a Japanese taste of uniqueness, because we respect our culture.
Finally, would you say this statement is the truth ‘retail is in the detail’ with regards to how you will be purveying the Snow peak brand in the UK ?
For sure. Of course, attention to detail during product development and communicate with each individual customers are very important, but we believe that seeing details is important for every aspect. For example, in London store, the wall display has the modular design so we can make the best layout in any plan change. We believe that we can provide better level of customer service by thoroughly focusing on every single detail.
Photography - Ollo Weguelin
Words - Q: Steve Monaghan & A: Lisa Yamai