Go big or go home.
That’s the way Ian Widmer feels about the planned retail expansion of his two high-end ski brands: Capranea and Dahu. This fall he will open six stores across Colorado and Utah for the Swiss luxury skiwear and ski boot companies.
Widmer, the chief executive officer of Progression Brands Group, has a history in the apparel industry, spending nearly 10 years at Canada Goose where he was the company’s first U.S. employee and managed its international markets from Zug, Switzerland. After Canada Goose went public in 2017, Widmer branched out on his own, creating PBG, which is now stacked with winter sports veterans from Burton, Rossignol and other well-known brands in the ski industry.
Although Widmer is based in Colorado, his father was Swiss and he’s spent a lot of time in Switzerland over the years. During his time there he became immersed in the local ski culture and became friends with Marc Haensli, the founder of Capranea. Haensli, the son of Walter Haensli, the codeveloper of Head Ski, an Olympic coach and a key player bringing skiing to New Zealand, created Capranea in 2008 as a luxury apparel brand built using the most cutting-edge technology.
In 2020, PBG made a strategic investment into the Baar, Switzerland-based Capranea to drive global expansion.
“Marc saw a gap in the marketplace that he could fill,” Wilmer said. “He’s a textile nut — that’s the nicest way I can say it. He’s an expert and he wanted to build a brand that was subtle, sophisticated and elegant that utilized best-in-class textiles that were different than what everybody else was making.”
He continued: “Everything we do is incredibly technical. It has to meet baseline technical specifications for us even to put it out into the marketplace, and then we design into those technical specs.”
Looks from the Capranea collection.
JOHN S MILLER
But while Capranea has become one of the leading ski brands in the Swiss market, its reach outside its home country is limited. “We have a lot of brand fans around the world and we’ve been slowly expanding in the United States through great B2B relationships, but it’s still an ‘if you know you know’ brand today,” Widmer said.
Dahu, a Swiss brand of ski boots “born out of frustration,” has also been making inroads and has developed a “very strong cult following,” Wilmer said.
“For 50 years, the ski market has been telling us that ski boots are supposed to fit a certain way, that you’re never able to actually blend comfort and performance, that you can’t build a technical, superior product, and not have your feet hurt,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be that way, so at Dahu, we’ve spent an incredible amount of time, energy and effort, bringing to market a product that truly blends comfort and performance.”
To better introduce these brands to the U.S. skiing community, Wilmer is “transitioning from a B2B business to a blended business.”
Wilmer opened his first Capranea store in Lionshead Village in Vail at the end of 2023 and a Dahu store there last year “to test the waters.” Now he will add two permanent stores in Vail Village, as well as units in Snowmass, Telluride and Minturn, Colo., as well as a pop-up in Park City, Utah. There will be a stand-alone Capranea store on Bridge Street and a Dahu store on Bridget Street in Vail Village; combined stores with separate entrances in Snowmass and Telluride, and an outlet in Minturn. The Park City pop-up will be a collaboration with We Norwegians on Main Street.
“We feel ready to go full throttle with our expansion and really bring the experience of the brands to life,” he said. “It’s a great time to be in the ski business.”
Like many brands, Capranea and Dahu both experienced a “COVID bump,” he said, but now the business has settled into “pre-pandemic levels of normality. I think brands planned for that, knowing the ride can’t last forever, but it also brought us a new consumer.”
Capranea is priced at the luxury end of the market.
JOHN S MILLER
Capranea products are not cheap — most on-mountain jackets retail for over $1,000 and off-mountain pieces run from $399 for a vest to $999 for a quilted mid-level coat — but heightened interest in the sport is helping fuel sales. Boot prices range from $675 to $895.
“It allows brands that are authentic — not just a brand that wants to play in the space — a platform to talk to the consumer in a way that gets them excited about skiing,” Wilmer said.
The stores will allow the company to tell the story of their Swiss DNA, which “stands for elegance, sophistication and craftsmanship,” he said. Nearly all of the products are manufactured in Europe from Italian and Japanese fabrics. Women’s accounts for 65 percent of the assortment and men’s 35 percent.
The Dahu boots are designed to be comfortable and functional.
JOHN S MILLER
The stores will also offer complementary brands including Chimi Eyewear, Yniq Eyewear, Uyn, Hestra Gloves and Astis Handwear. “Our goal is to create more than stores,” he said. “We’re building destinations where performance, luxury and alpine culture meet.”
And while the brands will continue to be offered at the 20 or so U.S. specialty ski stores such as Gorsuch, Cole Sport, Miller Sports and Hickory and Tweed that carry the lines, if the stores are successful, there will be more to come. “There are a few more in the pike for the year after, but we have to get these open first to prove we can handle expanding at this rapid pace.”
But while cautious, Wilmer is confident. “If it takes us one year to be successful, or another 10, I’m very confident that Dahu and Capranea can be the challenger brands that unseat the establishment and win this race because we have best-in-class product, great energy, a great team culture and we just don’t compromise.”
