The 66°North brand is on a mission to expand its reach around the world and has tapped a veteran designer to lead the charge.
The Iceland-based label, which traces its history to 1926, is mainly direct-to-consumer today but is looking to substantially increase its wholesale presence. Toward that end, the company will hold a presentation in Paris during Men’s Fashion Week, where it will show off the inaugural collection from creative director Kei Toyoshima, a designer whose résumé includes stints as head of menswear at Bottega Veneta and Haider Ackerman and who continues to serve in a menswear consulting role for Louis Vuitton.
Currently, the brand operates 11 retail stores in its home country as well as one in Copenhagen and another on Regent Street in London. While Iceland remains its largest market overall, the U.S. is its biggest online market, followed by the U.K., Germany and Scandinavia, according to Helgi Oskarsson, 66°North’s chief executive officer, who said the brand added Selfridges, Browns, Harrods and other stores to its stable this past fall. The line is also sold at Ssense and Mr Porter.
“We have quite aggressive plans for wholesale in North America, Europe and Asia,” he said, adding that the company hopes to surge “full force ahead” in those regions for fall 2024.
Oskarsson believes that the “milestone collection” the brand will be showing in Paris will help it reach that goal. Titled “66Nordur,” the 14-piece capsule pushes the brand into new territory with its oversize, fashion-forward silhouettes for men and women designed by Toyoshima.
“Unraveling the 100-year history of 66°North for me involved slowing down the passage of time and looking at the brand’s extensive history from a broad perspective,” Toyoshima explained.
He said that while functional apparel is now a mainstay on the runway, “most fashion houses cannot compete with 66°North when it comes to technical and down garment production. What I wanted to incorporate into the first 66°North collection was the ‘essential’ element that serves as a bridge between the brand’s heritage dating back to 1926 and the brand’s future for the next 100 years.”
He added that the “exciting challenge for the last months has been to pay respect to the mainline collection, where we have many classic pieces that have been in the collection for years, and then build on top something new and unique.”
He sought to focus on “design elements that had become forgotten or vague over the course of 100 years,” while also delving into Icelandic culture. One of the key pieces, he said, is the Reversible Kria Tindur jacket, an update to the brand’s signature Tindur jacket, with large pleats symbolizing fabric sticking together in the heavy rain and wind of Iceland. “This outerwear transforms its appearance by flipping it inside out, symbolizing our brand’s journey of reinterpreting its heritage and undergoing a new transition,” he said.
While exploring the archives, Toyoshima discovered the slogan, “Keeping Iceland Warm Since 1926,” which inspired the down coats, jacquard knits, shell jackets, trenches, hoodies, track tops and bottoms, and technical base layers in the fall collection.
Toyoshima also brought back the Icelandic version of the logo, 66°Nordur, for his collection and elevated the Kria Bird symbol, an arctic tern that has been part of the company’s visual communication since the late 1980s.
“66°North is Iceland’s favorite brand,” he said. “Over 96 percent of homes in Iceland have at least one piece from 66°North so it is understandable why some people call it the uniform of Iceland. Now the brand is starting its global expansion building on its unique Icelandic heritage. The Kria is a fantastic metaphor for the global traveler, which is an underlying theme in my design. I’m dedicated to sharing the philosophy that 66°North’s global journey begins here, mirroring the soaring travels of the Kria Bird around the world.”
Oskarsson said his plan is to first “create brand awareness” in the U.S. and elsewhere through an expanded wholesale presence, followed thereafter by the addition of stores. He’s also charged Toyoshima with creating a summer collection that will appeal more to an international customer.
“In Iceland, you can sell fall merchandise year-round, but we want two main seasons, spring and fall,” he said.
The brand was founded by Hans Kristjansson to create protective clothing for Icelandic fishermen and workers in the North Atlantic. The name of the brand refers to the latitude where the sun is visible for 24 hours during the summer solstice.
